Book summary: “Hidden Potential” by Adam Grant
My personal take and key takeaways from one of the best books of 2024 (according to me for now)
I am not new to Grant’s work; I read all of the books and have been a huge fan ever since I watched the TED Talk1 in which he shared about himself as an introverted teacher struggling to talk in front of big groups.
The same is true here: whenever I am to give a brief presentation at work to all of the team members (150), I feel I am going to die. My heart is pounding, and my breathing becomes difficult—this naturally easy daily action becomes hard to do.
I am going to try to do justice to this incredible book with my summary, but as a fan, I would still recommend that you read the whole book, which includes the studies, examples, and many stories, which I am obviously not going to include here.
Most people believe that outstanding talent is something you're born with.
Is that your belief, too?
According to Grant’s latest book, Hidden Potential2, this isn't true. He includes the research that has shown that people who demonstrate exceptional talent as adults weren't child prodigies. In fact, they typically started fairly average, or worse.
What ultimately distinguished them wasn't innate talent. It was motivation.
This brings us to the most important takeaway I want you to remember:
When it comes to reaching your potential, a willingness to learn and re-learn is more important than any natural ability.
To make this short and to the point, let me fast-forward through the book and select the key points I am applying here on my Substack.
One of the most important habits you can adopt is to make mistakes.
This does not mean you embrace making mistakes. You simply get comfortable with the fact that the action you take, decision or choice you make might turn out to be a mistake.
What's valuable is getting comfortable with the discomfort and awkwardness
of making the wrong decision or choice or taking the wrong action.
of being underprepared with little knowledge.
When I first arrived in the UK and introduced myself to the 6-year-old, I was going to au-pair for the next 9 months. Instead of introducing himself, he said, " Why do you talk so funny?” Of course, he was talking about my accent and my broken English. That moment could have caused a lot of self-conscious interaction, but it did not define my ultimate ability to eventually speak English fluently, as I do today.
Be a human sponge
Grant suggests you channel your inner sea sponge. Absorbing, filtering and adapting while you work toward learning your chosen skill. For example, becoming a good writer won’t happen overnight. It’s a skill like any other, which you need to invest time and effort into. By following and reading those you admire and consider good and skilled writers here on Substack and beyond.
Your ability to improve your writing skills is your choice. It has nothing to do with your genes and the opportunity you were both into.
You can absorb yourself in the skill you want to develop by reading, taking notes, attending classes, or attending training. Consider what you learn and ask follow-up questions. Once you gain a ton of knowledge, you filter through and keep the ones that would serve you.
Embrace Imperfection
Thriving for perfection is ingrained in many of us. It’s probably the reason behind many unfinished projects, books and even Substacks.
Let’s say you publish a new post and get no response. No one decides to comment, and some are not even prompted to open the email. And what if you post on the Notes and get no response either?
Did it happen to you? My guess is yes, so what happened? Nothing. Life went on. You survived. You tried again. You made some tweaks and tried again.
Many people get overwhelmed by shame, start blaming the platform, give up, and stop posting altogether. They are unable to look past the unsuccessful attempt and identify a useful lesson.
Grant explains that the oversight to learn from failure shrinks your comfort zone further, preventing you from reaching your potential. He writes, as soon as something becomes more challenging, you grow reluctant, inventing reasons why conditions aren't ideal enough to try.
This behaviour causes performance to plateau. To avoid this, Grant suggests creating realistic and specific goals.
This shifts your focus to progress, allowing you to value any improvement, however small.
The goal is growth, not perfection. By incrementally raising your standards as your aptitude develops, you'll work toward your full capabilities.
Progress through play
When it comes to grasping a difficult skill, the number of hours you put in matters less than how you spend that time.
Grant suggests Deliberate play. Deliberate play gives you the freedom to mix things up or adapt and generate energy while maintaining a structure that supports learning.
For me, this meant changing the style of my publication so I could expand the topics and different writing styles to make the Coffee Break newsletter diverse and interesting—always interesting for my readers and also slightly challenging for me.
As Grant writes, research has shown that this approach leads to better outcomes across many different fields and industries. Deliberate and play in workplace training leads to a swifter gain of new skills. Deliberate play can add fun to the more tedious aspects of learning or the ones you struggle with and tend to avoid.
Stop bullying yourself towards excellence and have some fun instead.
Flip your thinking about stagnation. When we first start learning something new, we often make big leaps forward. But over some time, the gains become smaller and more incremental, so much so that we often don't even notice them. When this happens, bam, we think we've hit a wall.
Grant explains that when performance stagnates while grasping a skill, there is always a period of decline before it improves again.
So when you hit that wall, it's completely normal to backtrack a little.
For example, you see a lot of it here on Substack where authors change their publication names or add a new direction to their publication; I did it, too. In fact, I did it two times, and even though, the second time was daily recent, they both propelled me more forward than the original publication could.
Grant explains that this is because by doing so, you fuel momentum to propel yourself beyond where you left off.
When you think about it, this makes sense because the way to get out of feeling stuck or stagnant is to abandon your current plans and try a new strategy.
Albert Einstein supposedly famously said,”'Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Trying something unfamiliar will always negatively impact your performance initially, but it gives you the chance to seek out new methods, mentors, or techniques that will serve you better in the long run.
Seeking out new information is a good first step, says Grant.
I would humbly add that seeking out new information outside of your industry is also crucial. This is what I have learned over the past decade or so working as a manager. There’s no one perfect manager—that manager does not exist. Different people have different strengths, weaknesses, and expertise, so having a range of mentors to seek advice from works best.
Yet, it's important that you don't unquestioningly follow their instructions.
Question everything you read, what you’re told and advised.
Remember Grant’s advice from the beginning of this summary: Channel your inner sponge and absorb, filter, and adapt, tailoring the information you've gleaned to suit your purposes.
Remember, there are many different routes to the same destination. Explore.
I hope you enjoyed my take on the “Hidden Potential” by Adam Grant. You can follow the author here on Substack:
.If you read this book, what stood out as your key takeaway, and how did you apply it? Share your thoughts in the comments. I'd love to hear from you.
Thank you for reading. It means so much. Have a great week.
Until next time,
Jana