Book Review: Hidden Potential by Adam Grant

I really enjoyed this book and I highly recommend it to everyone. 

Now that I have the spoiler alert out of the way, I will elaborate.

Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things is a book that pertains to anyone who wants to improve any area of their life.  This book is just as relatable to an individual as it is to the CEO of a major company.  I personally find Grant’s writing style to be very easy to read.  He knows just how to combine research, with story telling to make his books interesting and informative.  

In this book Grant sets out to show the reader how many of us underestimate our potential to learn new things and gain new skills.  He discusses the importance of character development over innate ability, and he explores how to build motivational structures that will help us reach our true potential.  

The book is broken into three parts: Skills of Character, Structures for Motivation and Systems of Opportunity. 

In Skills of Character Grants starts out by telling us that we need to embrace a growth mindset.  Here he tells us to learn to embrace discomfort.  He shows that in order to improve at new skills, we need to be willing to make mistakes and use those mistakes to help us grow. In this section Grant introduces the idea of becoming “a sponge”, where you need to immerse yourself in whatever it is you are trying to learn.  Finally in this section he tells us that we need to become imperfectionists by striving for excellence and not perfection. 

The second section of the book, Structures for Motivation is about how to set up scaffolding to overcome obstacles. Grant reminds us that every challenge requires its own support and the supports that you need are not permanent. Rather they are temporary and give you the lift that you need to keep growing on your own.  This was my favorite section of the book as it really gets into motivation.  He discusses ideas like finding activities to do that bring you joy and competing against yourself so that the only way you win is to grow.  Changing up your routines and taking time for rest and recovery are also strategies that he explores here.  Finding a mentor or multiple mentors is another scaffolding we can use, as well as coaching others. 

The last section of the book, Systems of Opportunity was more specific to certain topics, but the underlying theme was that we need to create systems that create opportunities for all people.  He begins this section by exploring the education system in Finland.  As a former educator I have spent a lot of time learning about the education system in Finland and I had a lot of strong reactions to this chapter.  I do agree with Grant on his points that every child has the potential to learn and that we need to find ways within in our education system to help all our students reach their full potential.  Without stepping too far up on my soapbox, I will just say that we need a cultural shift in how education is perceived and valued in this country before we can make the kinds of changes that need to be made. Grant then goes on to talk about the best ways for teams to work together and how to spot potential in people who are applying for jobs. 

What I really liked about this book is that I found it motivating. As we are starting the Holiday Hold ‘Em Challenge here at Forward Fitness this book helps put me into that growth mindset that I need to get out of some ruts that I have found myself in lately.  Also, as the days are getting shorter and colder, it reminds me that I can still find creative ways to achieve my goals.  

As I was reading the book I wrote down a few quotes that stood out to me. I do have to mention here that while I was reading the book, I was also listening to some podcasts where Grant was interviewed about the book.  So this quote might be in the book or it may have been something he said in an interview but either way I’m going to leave you with it, as I feel it sums up the book quite nicely.  

“Don’t think about success as achieving your goals, think about success as living your values.”