Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

by Adam M. Grant

Growing Roses from Concrete Did u hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete Proving nature’s laws wrong it learned 2 walk without having feet Funny it seems but by keeping its dreams it learned 2 breathe fresh air —“The Rose That Grew from Concrete,” written by Tupac Shakur

“What any person in the world can learn, almost all persons can learn,” the lead psychologist concluded, “if provided with appropriate . . . conditions of learning.”

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

If we judge people only by what they can do on day one, their potential remains hidden.

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.

ambition is the outcome you want to attain. Aspiration is the person you hope to become.

What counts is not how hard you work but how much you grow. And growth requires much more than a mindset—it begins with a set of skills that we normally overlook.

Proactive: How often did they take initiative to ask questions, volunteer answers, seek information from books, and engage the teacher to learn outside class? Prosocial: How well did they get along and collaborate with peers? Disciplined: How effectively did they pay attention—and resist the impulse to disrupt the class? Determined: How consistently did they take on challenging problems, do more than the assigned work, and persist in the face of obstacles?

When Chetty and his colleagues predicted adult income from fourth-grade scores, the ratings on these behaviors mattered 2.4 times as much as math and reading performance on standardized tests.

I now see character less as a matter of will, and more as a set of skills. Character is more than just having principles. It’s a learned capacity to live by your principles.

He’s played ten games simultaneously against ten different opponents and won them all—blindfolded. But he believes character matters more than talent.

To keep improving, you need the proactivity, discipline, and determination to study old games and new strategies.

character skills “predict and produce success in life.” But they don’t grow in a vacuum. You need the opportunity and motivation to nurture them.

In learning, scaffolding serves a similar purpose. A teacher or coach offers initial instruction and then removes the support. The goal is to shift the responsibility to you so you can develop your own independent approach to learning. That’s what Maurice Ashley did for the Raging Rooks. He set up temporary structures to give them the opportunity and motivation to learn.

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.

‘This game is fun. Let’s go—I’m gonna beat you’. . . . stir their spirit, their competitive fire. They sit down, they start learning the game, and as they become hooked, and they lose a game, they want to win.”

“The achievement is in the growing.”

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 doesn’t set like plaster—it retains its plasticity.

Character is your capacity to prioritize your values over your instincts.

If personality is how you respond on a typical day, character is how you show up on a hard day.

Personality is not your destiny—it’s your tendency. Character skills enable you to transcend that tendency to be true to your principles. It’s not about the traits you have—it’s what you decide to do with them. Wherever you are today, there’s no reason why you can’t grow your character skills starting now.

If our cognitive skills are what separate us from animals, our character skills are what elevate us above machines.

As more and more cognitive skills get automated, we’re in the midst of a character revolution. With technological advances placing a premium on interactions and relationships, the skills that make us human are increasingly important to master.

Importante

Creatures of Discomfort Embracing the Unbearable Awkwardness of Learning 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

I was surprised to discover that when they finally picked up their first foreign tongue, it wasn’t due to overcoming a cognitive block. It was because they cleared a motivational hurdle: they got comfortable being uncomfortable.

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.

Importante

There’s just one small problem with learning styles. They’re a myth.

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 you have to work harder at it. This is the first form of courage: being brave enough to embrace discomfort and throw your learning style out the window.

As blogger Tim Urban describes it, your brain gets hijacked by an instant gratification monkey, who picks what’s easy and fun over the hard work that needs to be done.

Many people associate procrastination with laziness. But psychologists find that procrastination is not a time management problem—it’s an emotion management problem. When you procrastinate, you’re not avoiding effort. You’re avoiding the unpleasant feelings that the activity stirs up. Sooner or later, though, you realize that you’re also avoiding getting where you want to go.

I’ve seen many people shy away from writing because it doesn’t come naturally to them. What they overlook is that writing is more than a vehicle for communicating—it’s a tool for learning. Writing exposes gaps in your knowledge and logic. It pushes you to articulate assumptions and consider counterarguments. Unclear writing is a sign of unclear thinking. Or as Steve himself quipped, “Some people have a way with words, and other people, uh . . . oh, not have a way.”

In the words of the great psychologist Ted Lasso, “If you’re comfortable, you’re doin’ it wrong.”

The popular adage “use it or lose it” doesn’t go far enough. If you don’t use it, you might never gain it in the first place.

It’s not enough to simply accept minimal discomfort when it arises. Surprisingly, we’re better off actively seeking out discomfort.

Comfort in learning is a paradox. 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.

Importante

“Your goal is to feel awkward and uncomfortable . . . it’s a sign the exercise is working,” the instructions said. Once people saw discomfort as a mark of growth, they were motivated to stretch beyond their comfort zones.

When discomfort is a signal of progress, you don’t want to run away from it. You want to keep stumbling toward it to continue growing.

That took a third form of courage—not just embracing and seeking discomfort, but amplifying it by being brave enough to make more mistakes.

The thought of making mistakes is especially distressing if you’re shy. Shyness is the fear of negative evaluation in social situations,

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.

“The more mistakes you make, the faster you will improve and the less they will bother you,” he observes. “The best cure to feeling uncomfortable about making mistakes is to make more mistakes.”