Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

by Adam M. Grant

What look like differences in natural ability are often differences in opportunity and motivation.

When we assess potential, we make the cardinal error of focusing on starting points—the abilities that are immediately visible.

You can’t tell where people will land from where they begin. With the right opportunity and motivation to learn, anyone can build the skills to achieve greater things. Potential is not a matter of where you start, but of how far you travel. We need to focus less on starting points and more on distance traveled.

People who make major strides are rarely freaks of nature. They’re usually freaks of nurture.

As the philosopher Agnes Callard highlights, ambition is the outcome you want to attain. Aspiration is the person you hope to become.

Character is more than just having principles. It’s a

learned capacity to live by your principles.

It’s often said that where there’s a will, there’s a way. What we overlook is that when people can’t see a path, they stop dreaming of the destination. To ignite their will, we need to show them the way. That’s what scaffolding can do.

When we admire great thinkers, doers, and leaders, we often focus narrowly on their performance. That leads us to elevate the people who have accomplished the most and overlook the ones who have achieved the most with the least. The true measure of your potential is not the height of the peak you’ve reached, but how far you’ve climbed to get there.

Character is often confused with personality, but they’re not the same. Personality is your predisposition—your

your basic instincts for how to think, feel, and act. Character is your capacity to prioritize your values over your instincts.

It’s easy to be proactive and determined when things are going well. The true test of character is whether you manage to stand by those values when the deck is stacked against you. If personality is how you respond on a typical day, character is how you show up on a hard day.

With technological advances placing a premium on interactions and relationships, the skills that make us human are increasingly important to master.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition

inspired, and success achieved. —Helen Keller

Becoming a creature of discomfort can unlock hidden potential in many different types of learning. Summoning the nerve to face discomfort is a character skill—an especially important form of determination. It takes three kinds of courage: to abandon your tried-and-true methods, to put yourself in the ring before you feel ready, and to make more mistakes than others make attempts. The best way to accelerate growth is to embrace, seek, and amplify discomfort.

What we now know is that your preference isn’t fixed, and playing only to your strengths deprives you of the opportunity to improve on your weaknesses.

The way you like to learn is what makes you comfortable, but it isn’t necessarily how you learn best.

Sometimes you even learn better in the mode that makes you the most uncomfortable, because yo...

It’s that if we avoid the discomfort of learning techniques that don’t come easily to us, we limit our own growth.

You can’t become truly comfortable with a skill until

you’ve practiced it enough to master it. But practicing it before you master it is uncomfortable, so you often avoid it. Accelerating learning requires a second form of courage: being brave enough to use your knowledge as you acquire it.

You don’t have to wait until you’ve acquired an entire library of knowledge to start to communicate. Your mental library expands as you communicate.

When we’re encouraged to make mistakes, we end up making fewer of them. Early mistakes help us remember the correct answer—and motivate us to keep learning.

When Benny is ready to start learning a new language, he sets an ambitious goal: to make at least 200 mistakes a day.

“The more mistakes you make, the faster you will improve and the less they will bother you,”

Psychologists call that cycle learned industriousness. When you get praised for making an effort, the feeling of effort itself starts to take on secondary reward

properties. Instead of having to push yourself to keep trying, you feel pulled toward it.

You don’t need to get comfortable before you can practice your skills. Your comfort grows as you practice your skills.

If we wait until we feel ready to take on a new challenge, we might never pursue it all. There may not come a day when we wake up and suddenly feel prepared. We become prepared by taking the leap anyway.

Absorptive capacity is the ability to recognize, value, assimilate, and apply new information. It hinges on two key habits. The first is how you acquire information: Do you react to what enters your field of vision, or are you proactive in seeking new knowledge, skills, and perspectives? The

second is the goal you’re pursuing when you filter information: Do you focus on feeding your ego or fueling your growth?

Learning is more likely when people are reactive and growth oriented. Responding with an eye toward improvement makes people moldable, like clay. They’re often praised as coachable or teachable. They’re not worried about whether criticism will hurt their egos; they embrace the discomfort and internalize whatever input might help their development.

The sweet spot is when people are proactive and growth oriented. That’s when they become sponges. They consistently take the initiative to expand themselves and adapt.

It’s easy for people to be critics or cheerleaders. It’s harder to get them to be coaches. A critic sees your weaknesses and attacks your worst self. A cheerleader sees your strengths and celebrates your best self. A coach sees your potential and helps you become a better version of yourself.

Instead of seeking feedback, you’re better off asking for advice. Feedback tends to focus on how well you did last time. Advice shifts attention to how you can do better next time. In experiments, that simple shift is enough to elicit more specific suggestions and more constructive input.[*] Rather than dwelling on what you did wrong, advice guides you toward what you can do right.

I replaced my usual feedback questions with

a basic request for advice.[*] What’s the one thing I can do better? Suddenly people started giving me useful tips.

After every talk I give, I ask the hosts what I can do better. It reminds me that not all advice is created equal, and the more suggestions you collect, the more important filtering becomes. How do you know which sources to trust?

There’s nothing wrong with taking criticism personally. Taking it personally shows you’re taking it seriously. Getting upset isn’t a mark of weakness or even defensiveness—as long as your ego doesn’t stand in the way of your learning.

A key to being a sponge is determining what information to absorb versus what to filter out. It’s a question of which coaches to trust. I like to break trustworthiness down into three components: care, credibility, and familiarity.

By trying to understand what provoked their reactions, you can glean insights about how to elicit a different response next time.

Many people fail to benefit from constructive criticism because they overreact and under-correct.

Being a sponge is not only a proactive skill—it’s a prosocial skill. Done right, it’s not just about soaking up nutrients that help us grow. It’s also about releasing nutrients to help others grow.

There is a crack, a crack in everything That’s how the light gets in —Leonard Cohen

I’ve come to understand that unlocking hidden potential is not about the pursuit of perfection. Tolerating flaws isn’t just something novices need to do—it’s part of becoming an expert and continuing to gain mastery.

The more you grow, the better you know which flaws are acceptable.

Wabi sabi is the art of honoring the beauty in imperfection.

It’s not about creating intentional imperfections. It’s about accepting that flaws are inevitable—and recognizing that they don’t stop something from becoming sublime.

Wabi sabi is a character skill. It gives you the discipline to shift your attention from impossible ideals to achievable standards—and then adjust those standards over time.