Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things (Pt. 2)

Welcome to Readers, the podcast for the lifelong learner. Join us on our weekly dose of wisdom where we talk about the real life lessons and applications of books. Enjoy. Welcome back to Readers, everyone. Last time we reviewed part 1 of Hidden Potential by Adam Grant, which reviewed chapters 1 to 3. We primarily discussed the importance of learning through discomfort, perfection, and how to be a good sponge. But today we are going to be starting Part 2 of Hidden Potential, reading from chapters 4 to 6. Once again, I have with me Mr. Anand Gandhi. Welcome back, Mr. Gandhi.

Thanks, brother, for having me. Excited to talk about this.

Looking forward to it. And I look forward to exploring these next few chapters. So let's get right into it. So this, this Part 2 actually starts with a little bit of a prologue here. It's called Structures for Motivation. And I think it covers some really interesting points about what we normally refer to as the daily grind, right? So there's, there's this kind of, uh, idea about the daily grind where it's sort of become glorified in a way, and people feel like you just have to go through that daily grind, maybe even hating what you do every day, and that's the only way to get better or achieve success, unlock your hidden potential. But in fact, Adam Grant talks about how the daily grind eventually actually ends up burning us out. Now, I don't know if anybody who's listening has ever felt like this before, but just working, doing the exact same things, whether it's me at school, whether it's you at work, it does eventually tend to feel— you eventually tend to feel a little bit of burnout. And Adam Grant also brings up this really interesting point about character skills. Now I think this is kind of cool because he says that although character skills are extremely important, um, they're not always enough to travel far. And this is because, this is because although they may give you that initial push, that initial, um, spark, you have to turn that spark into a flame, right? And character skills, your own motivation and your own drive might not be enough to go through the daily grind every day. So that's where scaffolding comes in. Mr. Guthrie, do you want to explain a little bit about what scaffolding is?

Sure. Yeah. You know, simply put, I think scaffolding is, you know, when you think about someone building a building or trying to paint at a very high building, the scaffolding holds them up. I think we all need external support structures that hold us up, that kind of re-enthusi— give us our enthusiasm back, reinvigorate us. And that's really what scaffolding is at a high level. He gives a lot of different examples about how you can build the right structures, right? So your character can get you so far, but we're all going to falter. Every hero falters. And in those moments, you need the right support things to hold you up. And so he really breaks that down in a great, great way. And I love the example of Tetris. And that's something that I would not have expected at all. But, um, the game of Tetris is, is something that psychologists often offer up, uh, in order to boost your resilience and provide that scaffolding. So it's not, it doesn't have to be a person. It can be a, it can be an activity. It can be some thoughts, some powerful thoughts that you read or that you turn to. Um, whether it's a scripture that you, that you believe in, or it could be anything. And I thought, you know, Tetris is, is one of 'em that psychologists use.

Yeah, I thought that was really cool. And so he breaks it a little bit down, right? That scaffolding actually has 4 key components in it, and that's what creates scaffolding. The first is scaffolding generally usually comes from other people, which I thought was kind of interesting, right? Because we always feel like the daily grind has to be done alone. You're by yourself, you gotta push yourself through it. But he says scaffolding actually comes from other people, whether that's the Tetris results from scientists, whether that's your coach pushing you to do that extra lap on the court, whatever it is. The second thing was that scaffolding is always tailored to the obstacle in your path, right? So whatever you're doing, and this was kind of obvious, right? But this always is tailored to whatever obstacle you have, a problem you're having. So in the example of Tetris, right? And just to kind of show what that Tetris does is it's supposed to help After people watch a scary movie or a horror movie or something, watching Tetris can kind of help you. A lot of people who get really scared after watching that, Tetris helps ease back into your normal life. It makes you, I don't know if I'm explaining this right, Mr. Gandhi, if you want to jump in here, but Tetris basically, it blocks intrusive images by activating visual spatial circuits.

Yeah, I think basically at the end of the day, at various levels of our brain. Uh, simplistically, Tetris kind of changes the way our brain is processing things. It takes our mind off of whatever it is that's kind of becoming a grind and exhausting us, and then it rebuilds our mind and gets it refreshed, essentially. And so, you know, he goes through specifics, but I think at a high level you could probably summarize it in that way to say that's really what Tetris does, is it takes your mind off of the challenge and, and, uh, kind of refreshes you to go get going again.

Exactly. So now we move on to the third part, which is that scaffolding comes at a pivotal point, right? For example, you will— Tetris will only help you if you want— if you play it after the video or after the movie, right? Not before. Your scaffolding has to come at a point in time where that's when it's going to help you best. Otherwise, it doesn't serve its purpose. And then the last part was that scaffolding is temporary. Now I thought this was interesting, right? You don't need scaffolding to hold up a building for the whole duration of how long the building is there for, right? You only need it while it's being built, only while you're fighting that specific obstacle, only while you're facing a certain challenge. So this was some of— these were the 4 key components of scaffolding. I wanna ask you, Mr. Gandhi, have you ever experienced a moment in your life where you feel like you've needed scaffolding or where you feel like you've gotten it and it's kind of helped you get through certain points in your life?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, all of us have, right? Like there's just no way you can make it through life without scaffolding of some sort. Some of us have stronger scaffolding than others. And what he talks about in the next chapters that we'll discuss is really how do you build strong or scaffolding? But yeah, for me personally, you know, when I lost the job and I was kind of scared and worried about what I was gonna do, I felt like my career was kind of like running into a dead end, you know, having these people who coached me through that, who helped me realize like, hey, there's other paths here. You're not, you, you don't have to just pick this one path. Um, and, and that the, the path isn't end over. Um, I think all of those people served as powerful scaffolds, uh, for me to kind of hold me up in those moments. And so, you know, I've been blessed with great, uh, great company and, and great mentors who have really coached me through life's tough moments. Um, going all the way back to high school when, you know, you're, you're a kid and you're struggling to figure out what do you want to do? Who do you want to date? All these things, right? And, and so, um, those things are, those things are very helpful and, and, and I'm grateful for all of those people, but definitely, uh, excited to share a little bit more about it as we go forward.

Yeah, for sure. And this brings us, this is a perfect segue into chapter 4, I think, which was Transforming the Daily Grind. Right, um, and he actually brings up an example of somebody, a mentor like you, like you just talked about, who helped the world's first solo percussionist. So this, this is a woman whose name was Evelyn Glennie. She's the world's first solo percussionist and she was deaf. Now this is, I mean, she's in the music industry, right? Like, this is crazy to find somebody in the music industry who's deaf. Um, now what Grant says is that she didn't do endless hours of these boring scales and just all of that, which might have caused burnout, but rather she met with a percussion teacher named Ron Forbes who made learning fun, right? So you can be deaf, and as long as the learning is fun and you feel like you want to do it every day, clearly you can make something of yourself, right? Um, so Grant talks about how she would use her body parts to feel vibrations of sound, um, and she would learn different classical pieces through touch, right? Now this is, this is crazy, right? He was like, she would put her hand against the wall. Yeah, hear the vibrations from different instruments and would gauge the pitch and all of that off of, off of how it felt. Um, and that's why she chose percussion because it's very you know, very clear vibrations. But the point of this was the best way to unlock hidden potential is to transform the daily grind into a source of joy. What are your thoughts? Yeah.

You know, I, I think, you know, this is like, it absolutely goes, it, I think we have this mindset that sometimes if it's hard, you just gotta push through and you gotta keep grinding. You know, we use this phrase, keep grinding, keep grinding, and we've kind of made it a part of our vocabulary. But in that process of continually grinding, I think a lot of people burn out and they don't get to their destination and they're frustrated because they're like, I'm grinding, but why am I not making it? And that's because we're not enjoying the journey. We're all grinding with this goal at the end, but we're not enjoying this journey. And so we don't actually grow. Um, and you should, you know, he talks about how do you change it from I should be studying, I should be practicing to I feel like studying, right? I'm excited to practice. And you know, again, same, we, there's a lot of people who are mentioning this like 10,000 hours of practice and you'll, you you know, develop the skill. But I don't think it's quite that simple. It has to be fun and enjoyable. And I, I really see this when you have kids. The people who have kids will truly understand this. You know what, when my son practices piano, the thing that he— we've gone to several different places, and where we are right now, the reason he enjoys it, because the teacher makes it so enjoyable. They'll do fun exercises, they'll make it into a game, they'll play with it, they'll do kind of things like where he has to close his eyes and tell what note it is, things that don't feel like practice. And you're like, why are you not just repeatedly playing the piece? Like, that's how you get better. That's not quite true. And I think that's why I struggle as a parent to be a good coach, because I don't have, I don't have the skills to offer really creative ways to learn. But I can see that with the coaches that my son really clicks with, it's always because that coach makes the whole process so enjoyable that they're working, but they don't realize they're working. They're just having fun doing it. And along the way, they're growing.

Yeah, no, for sure. And I feel like the author talks about a little bit of what happens when you don't make your work fun, when you don't enjoy your daily, your daily grind. And what happens is, is burnout, right? Well, actually it's 2 things. It's burnout and bore-out. So burnout, the author says, is emotional exhaustion from being overloaded, which many of you have already known. But bore-out is emotional deadening from being understimulated. Right? So a lot of people feel like their ideal life is doing something easy, simple, and then getting back to doing whatever they like to do, right? Playing video games, playing sports, whatever that is. But bore out is actually— bore out shows that whatever you do, whatever your job is, whatever your career is, it should actually have you stimulated. You should be learning new things. You should be enjoying it. And you should be driven to do that on your own, not just because of the paycheck you might be getting. Mr. Gandhi, do you, have you ever felt this sense of bore out or burnout in your career? And if so, what have you done to prevent that or keep going?

So I guess I've been lucky for better or worse not to have felt it. You know, I think I try to avoid it by continually either changing what I'm doing, challenging myself in a new way, taking on a new project. I think continually doing the same thing would've definitely led to bore out. Um, and, and same, like, you know, had I just stayed at the law firm forever, I think I might've burnt out. But I think that, you know, I've been able, blessed to be able to find companies where I could work and, and be challenged and, and take on new roles, wear different hats, take on projects that I don't do, for example, in cybersecurity or in IT or in HR. And I'm like, oh, I've never learned this. And so that kind of, that, that keeps it novel and it keeps you engaged without feeling like you're just doing the same dreaded thing again and again.

Yeah, for sure. And, and that's actually what, uh, Grant talks about and describes as harmonious passion, right? He says that elitists are rarely driven by obsessive compulsion but rather harmonious passion. So what he means is these aren't people that are driven just by, I need to perfect this scale, I need to just do this because that's what's going to get me somewhere, but rather I, I want to learn this so that I can get to this point, so that I can— whatever it is— I can make this symphony the best symphony of all time. I can make this piece of writing the best piece of writing of all time, whatever that is. But it's, it's passion. Um, so now the, the author brings a question into the mix. He says, how do you build scaffolding to bring passion into practice? All of this is Very easy to say, you know, you have to be passionate, you have to not just work alone, you have to have mentors. But how do you, how do you really build that scaffolding? And how do you bring passion into practice? And this is where the author talks and brings in a little bit of what he calls deliberate play, which is a structured activity that is designed to make skill development enjoyable. Can you tell us a little bit about that, Mr. Gandhi?

Yeah, you know, I think, think about gamification. I think that word is everyone's really familiar with and, and that's kind of the hype these days. Everyone's trying to gamify everything we do in life, whether it's working out, whether it's learning, whether it's reading, we want to gamify everything. You know, gamification though is kind of a gimmick, right? In a sense that it basically, you're adding some bells and whistles to something that seems otherwise boring and it basically gives you this dopamine hit. that kind of distracts you from boredom and, and puts, pushes off the exhaustion. Um, you know, you might want to get to the top of the leaderboard on your Peloton bike. And so you push through, but it doesn't really create a love for what it is you're doing. You don't walk away thinking, oh, I love biking and I wanna do it for fun. You're, you're kind of motivated by this being at the top of the leaderboard. Um, and so deliberate play, however, is something that is much more intentional and, and Deliberate play involves this idea of deliberate practice and combines it with free play. And so it takes this practice aspect and incorporates creative elements so that you can make it more enjoyable and you truly enjoy the process itself and not just some extrinsic motivation to want to get on the leaderboard or feel like you won something. And he gives this long example of Steph Curry, which again, everyone knows is— The best 3-point shooter in the history of the NBA has changed the entire game. But behind that is his coach, Brandon Payne, who was not a basketball player. He couldn't make it, but he transitioned to coaching and he tried to figure out how can I motivate athletes and how can I get them to become better without burning out and getting bored? And so a lot of people have seen Steph Curry's kind of videos of how he practices, and it's very, very unorthodox. Unique ways. And that's all because of his coach, Brandon, who took otherwise boring processes and made it really, really fun. He talks about all these games that Steph does in practice, like 21, where you have to score 21 points and after each shot you have to sprint to the middle of the court and get back. And the idea is you're trying to stimulate, simulate a game situation where you get fatigued and you got it, you're trying to keep going, but by having a number you have something to beat and so they time it. And so it's like, can you beat this number and beat the time? That's how you win. And so they've created a game, it's gamified, but it's really serving this core purpose of like becoming a better basketball player. And so, you know, he's come up with all sorts of things like this and that's what makes practice fun. And as a result, of course, Steph Curry's become the best 3-point shooter in the world and that's really helped him realize his hidden potential, right? Like small guy, 6'2", 185 pounds, Everyone wonders like, how is this guy gonna be a great NBA player? But through this deliberate play, he was able to go a great distance and obviously become the greatest.

Yeah, exactly. And I think one of the biggest differences between gamification and, and deliberate play is that you're not trying to throw in a little, a little biscuit here or there to make that fun. You're, you're actually making the process fun, right? Whether that's new novel ways to practice, whether it's changing the tools, different people, the goals you set, etc. Uh, he gives some examples, right? Uh, he talks about certain improv comedy courses in med school, role play and sales classes, and more. So, um, he introduces some of these kinds of components to talk about how you could make even learning that's very difficult, um, Fun. Yeah.

And I think, I think, uh, sorry to jump in here, but like, I, I think you're seeing this, right? A lot of people are very acutely aware of this. You know, you go to any corporation and the trainings, for example, at the law firm, the trainings that they're doing, they're trying to make them more engaging, right? Every, everyone's focused on how do you increase engagement? And so you're seeing people realize like, we can't do the same thing where we get in front of people, give them a lecture, ask them to watch a video and take a quiz. So they're trying to change it up. Like, can you do something very different, uh, like role-playing or mock negotiations or, Can you, you know, like an improv comedy course to improve your bedside manners as a doctor? There's, there's a lot of different things you could do. And I think companies are actively trying to do this. They're, they're, you know, engaging some of the best consultants to help design things that again feel a lot more like play and less like drudgery.

Yeah. And, but now the author brings in something kind of interesting. He says whether it's deliberate play or anything else, right? Whether it's the deliberate play or the daily grind, doing anything for too long long causes boredom and lack of motivation to continue, right? Even if it's something fun. I mean, I don't know about you, but I can't even watch TV for a full day like that. You kind of get bored after a while, right? So he says breaks are important for 3 reasons. Um, he says the first is that the time away from practice helps to sustain harmonious passion, which is interesting, right? If you take a break from something that maybe even you love doing um, then it causes you to want to go back to it and keep doing it, which sustains harmonious passion. The second is that breaks unlock fresh ideas, right? He gives the example of Lin-Manuel Miranda thinking of Hamilton while he was on a beach sipping a piña colada. Um, and the third is that breaks deepen growing. Um, and he says that taking multiple short breaks is better than, uh, taking just a couple of really, really long ones, right? And he says breaks shouldn't be done when you're starting to feel the burnout. They should be done before then because you want to avoid that feeling of burnout. Do you see this kind of progressing in your field? I know in the law field you were mentioning kind of deliberate play coming in here. Do you feel like breaks and things like that have also been kind of present?

Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is true. Definitely in, in the legal world, but in really every, every place. I think young people are definitely starting to take more time off. Taking, uh, I know some companies, I don't think law firms offer this, but a lot of companies offer paid sabbaticals where you can take like up to 5 to 6 months off just to go do something different in life, right? Like there's so much more in life than just the work that we do every day and, and, and constantly grinding away. People have realized that makes you less effective a, as a professional. And you're actually ultimately not producing as much as you could, frankly. And so, you know, and, and when you step away, you come back refreshed with a new energy and you're ready to hit the ground running, right? And so I think it's really important to take a break. Vacations are the best. Like, you know, you take a 3— I always think I was actually wrote about this on LinkedIn some time ago, but taking longer than a 3 or 4 day vacation is so important because 2, 3 days you're kind of there, you're just like, Basically ready to get plugged in right away and your brain never disconnects. But when you go step away for 2 weeks and, you know, you, you take that much time, you really have a chance to reflect on life, on meaning and, and find something deeper and, and find a deeper resolve to go back to what you were doing. And, and this is true even like in your personal life. Avni and I always joke that like when we finally apart for a few days, then we're like more excited to be together again. And so, Yeah, I think, I mean, you might not relate to that one yet, but you know, it, it's so true in all aspects of our life. I'm sure you guys feel that when you're away from summer break from your friends and then you get back together, your, your friendship is rekindled and you're reinvigorated to like, yeah, you know, spend more time together.

Sure, for sure. And he, and he actually talks a little bit about this taking a break to change your pace to do something else in this next chapter, chapter 5, which is about getting unstuck. And this starts with a story of a pitcher named R.A. Dickey. This was a pitcher who was a young phenom pitcher. Everybody knew he was going to the league. He was doing extremely well, pitching better than almost anybody his age and his size. But he, when he went for, when he went to get his doctor's appointment, they noticed that he had a missing ligament in his throwing arm, which placed a cap on his speed. So what they were saying was the highest pitch he would ever be able to throw is 80 miles per hour, which to the normal person might sound like a lot, but in baseball terms, that's not the fastest pitch you should be able to throw, especially in a fastball. So when that happened, he went from a phenom pitcher to somebody in the minor leagues, right? Nobody really paid much attention to him after that. But that was when he discovered the knuckleball. So just to give you guys some background, he went back to the major leagues, failed there, went back, went back to the major leagues, failed again. And this happened like 2, 3 times. And it basically feels like you're going in loops when that happens, right? You feel like I'm just meant to stay in the minor leagues. I'm not supposed to, you know, I'm not good enough to be there. But this was when he discovered what is called the knuckleball. Now I'm not a big baseball fan. I'm not exactly sure what it is. What I've— what the book says about it is that it almost— it has little to no spin on it and it kind of goes up and down as it's in the air. Like it moves in the air instead of just going straight.

Yeah, I happen to be a baseball junkie. I mean, look, the mechanics aside, there's very, very, very few knuckleballers and When R.A. Dickey came out onto the scene, it was— everyone was just like, where does this guy come from? I mean, the most atypical story, right? Like, he wasn't highly recruited. He wasn't even— and he was much older than most of the young pitchers. And, you know, there's been, I think, very like 2 maybe knuckleballers who have successfully done it. And he was one of them. It's just a phenomenal story of how he kind of reinvented himself and kind of really changed how he was practicing and changed his whole approach. And how he found a passion through that.

Yeah, so I mean, like you said, people were like, where did this guy come out of? I mean, he became a great pitcher at 35, right? Which is, for anybody who watches sports, 35 is pretty, pretty late to start getting into the game. Um, but what he did was he developed scaffolding from many different coaches, many different players but his main scaffolding actually came from being able to unlearn. And he talks about this, the author talks about this concept of being able to unlearn what we've always felt like is needed to succeed. And how many people feel like growth is linear, but it's actually not. So do you wanna explain a little bit about what that kind of means and how growth might be in loops, but you're still growing, right?

Even if— Yeah. You know, I think we see people's stories and they're like, oh, I made it to the top and moved my way up. But you don't get that. That's unfortunately, it's a very— call it like the Instagram world. You're just seeing the snapshot of what they've done. And you're, you know, if you look on someone's resume, you're like, wow, he moved up. You're not seeing what's happened in between. You're not— excuse me. You're not seeing the full movie. And so we kind of have this idea that like, hey, I'm just going to keep moving forward. Things are going to get better and better. But that's not how it works. Sometimes you take a couple steps back, you move around, you do something bad, you, you know, you return, and then you end up finally at your destination. And I think, you know, what we don't need— what we need is we need a compass to make sure we're going generally in the right direction, but it doesn't have to be a linear line, and it's never going to be, in fact. And I think changing your mindset about that is really important because sometimes when we're stuck, we're, you know, again, the, the common refrain is just keep grinding, push your way through, stay on the path, stay focused, stay hard, keep working hard and you'll make it. But that's not really true. Like sometimes you do have to take a step back. You got to go on to another path. You got to detour. I think, again, my career has been very much that way. Like I, I've been trying to find this path to where I feel fulfilled and I'm a very successful attorney at the same time. And it hasn't been linear. I've gone to the law firm, I've gone in-house, I've changed roles in-house, I've gone back to the law firm. And, but each step along the way, I've learned something valuable about myself, about my career. I've become a better attorney. And so it really is true that sometimes to get unstuck, you got to take a step back to take two steps forward. And we don't need to worry about going backwards sometimes. And it's more important that we remember our final goal, where we're trying to get to, and that sometimes we reroute so that we can actually get back up and keep going. And, and that we might get there faster if we reroute as opposed to just trying to be on a route that's impossible to do.

And sometimes all that's needed is really a change of pace. The author talks about, you know, when you feel like you're stuck in a certain point in your career, in your passion, whatever you're doing, sometimes you just need to take on a side hustle, right? You need to practice a hobby. You need to do something else that's completely not related to what your career is or what your job is or what you have to do. He says that enjoying hobbies or projects completely separate, that are completely separate from work, can actually increase performance and confidence. And here he gives the example of R.A. Dickey. So his detour, his side hustle or his hobby was he wanted to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. This is something he wanted to do ever since, um, high school or middle school or something. And that season that he actually climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, so he, upon climbing it, he was like, I felt like I was, I had achieved something that I've wanted to for so long, and it helped me see things from a whole new light, um, you know, physically and, um, you know, from another way. But he was, he was talking about how doing something like very different from what his career was or what his original path was helped him in so many different ways. So he says, the author talks about how that season after he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, his, his knuckleball hit new heights. He made the All-Star Game, he set the team record for most scoreless innings, he led the league in strikeouts, and much more. And this was all at the age of 37. The author says that this is not just a breakout moment, but this is the accumulation of years going in circles.

Yeah. You know, one of the things, and, and, and the reason he was able to get there is because he found the right guides, right? Like when we're stuck, our, we're stuck because our brain doesn't know what else to do. And, um, it's really important to have a guide. And this goes back to the kind of scaffolding ideas. Like you need people who can give you new ideas that you can implement. You need people who can emotionally support you, who can give you the right thoughts. Motivation, push you, give you a different perspective. Um, and, and he talks about— I love this part where he talks about like, okay, so like, how do you find that guide? And does it— is it one person? Is it multiple people? Um, the truth is, is like, our— the way we normally think is, okay, I need to go find the best person. Like, if I'm an attorney, I need to go find the best attorney. Or if I want to become strong, I want to go find the strongest guy and get him as my mentor, and that'll be really good. He'll guide me along the way. Um, but that actually turns out to be the wrong path because If you're taking a new road, the best experts are often the worst guides. And that he talks about why that's the case, because when you're an expert at something, you have the curse of knowledge. You forget what it's like to be in your, in the shoes of the person who's trying to learn because you're so advanced, right? The more you know, the harder it is for you to be like, oh, I, you, you can't understand what it's like to not know. And so that's, that's exactly why Einstein, for example, was not the best professor. Um, and, and so he uses this quote that like, it's often said that those who can't do teach, right? And I think the reason is, and what the way to interpret that is not that teachers are bad people or that they're failures. It's in fact the, the, the opposite. Teachers have the gift to teach because they're able to not be on autopilot. They're able to engage and they're able to understand where you are in your journey. Um, and, and an expert, for example, they don't have the same strengths and weaknesses. And so what you need is you need multiple guides in your life who can give you different perspectives, who can understand you, and, and, you know, they can get familiar with your path and then show you different options that you can kind of synthesize on your own. And I think that that's, again, it goes back to this idea of it's kind of a loopy process. It's not a linear path. You're gonna have multiple guides. They're gonna tell you different options. They'll drop some suggestions and then you might try one. It might not work. You might try another. It might not work. But you'll try something and then you'll work and you'll keep progressing. And then you kind of do this process again and again. And over time, the graph goes up, the line keeps going up, but in between it may be a little bit, you know, circuitous.

Yeah. And when, when talking about different guides and different coaches and teachers, you often think about somebody older, wiser, right? You think of Yoda or Mr. Miyagi or something like that. But in the next chapter, in chapter 6, the author actually talks about how your own peers and people you are going on this journey together with can be that coach. So he starts with this story of the first 13 Black men in America being called to become Navy officers, right? The first 13 Black Navy officers, the first to wear gold stripes and stars. They were called the Golden 13. And they did— they passed all of their tests, set records, and they did it all in record time. So when you hear a story like this, right, most people feel like it's achieved by pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps, right? I did it by myself. I beat all odds, you know, things like that. And, and maybe there's a component of that, but realistically it's a much more complicated process, right? So the author says that this all starts with a growth mindset but has to be followed up by learning from others and being a sponge, which was something we discussed in the last episode. Teaching helps you learn. So he says that the Golden 13 were pitted against each other as rivals, right? Because only a certain amount of people can become Navy officers, and a certain amount of people fail. But instead, they work together as a team and coached each other. They taught each other vital skills and succeeded together, right? Because between 13 people, some people were great at math, some people were great at reading, some were great at writing, some were great at whatever it is. But they, they taught each other vital skills, and they were able to succeed.

Yeah, I think, I think it's important, like, and we, we hear about this But success isn't mutually exclusive. Like, my success is not mutually exclusive to the success of others. I think that this idea of I need to succeed and that means everyone else needs to fail, that's just not how it works. We can all rise together. This is something that we need as a world to just have a better society that's more harmonious. But I think it, it's applicable in our individual lives and our individual journeys as well, that like, in order for you to grow, You want to find people who you're going to grow with, and as they grow, you're going to grow. They're going to pull you up in moments. You're going to pull them up in moments. Um, and you know, one of the examples that he gives is just like how you can learn through teaching, and it's one of the most powerful ways of learning. And so, you know, an older sibling, for example, uh, we often feel like, why is it that older siblings, uh, are maybe more advanced? And I, I'm an older sibling, and so they— I, I feel like maybe I did better in school. My wife's an older sibling, and she feels like there's something she did better. The truth is, is that you're not, you're not better because of anything else besides this tutoring effect, right? Like you had the chance to teach your younger sibling all of these things, and in that process, it helped you learn those things, right? And so I think, you know, my son goes to a school where they have mixed age classrooms, and this is like the number one argument for something outside of what traditional, traditional schools, you know, you sit in the same classroom with kids your own age. And you try to learn, um, but you don't have the opportunity to teach, right? Because everyone's in the same boat. You all don't know the same thing and you're all learning it together. And sure, there may be some small opportunities to teach, but for— if you're, if you're an average student or below average student, there's definitely no opportunities for you to help anyone else. Whereas when you get into a mixed age classroom, you have high schoolers who have a chance to work with elementary school kids and share their advice. And even if they're not practicing those things, By giving that advice, it kind of reinforces like, hey, I'm saying this, I should do it too. Um, and he shares these examples from the studies in these experiments where high schoolers earn higher report card grades in multiple subjects, even if they just gave advice to younger students on how to stay motivated and avoid procrastinating. It didn't matter that those kids didn't follow their own advice, but just giving the advice helped them do better. And I think again, by being a coach and being forced to be a coach, you then automatically start leveling up your own game and internalizing those things. And I think it's, it's something that we really need to think about in our education.

Absolutely. And the, the, the author talks about how that coaching actually, teaching can build competence, but coaching actually builds confidence, right? Encouraging others builds motivation in yourself. And this all goes back to, I don't know if you guys have read Give and Take, which is also by the same author. But he talks about how receiving is passive and it puts you in a dependent position, but giving is active, right? It reminds you of all that you can offer and you can support yourself. So that was one component of how— of each effective coaching is giving. And then another part of effective coaching was high expectations. Now, this was really interesting, right? And I'm going to go through this kind of fast because I think we're running out of time here. But when others believe in our high potential, it actually gives us a ladder to grow. And research has shown that high expectations lead to high performance, especially when they come from an expert in the task or subject. So this all can provide the initial spark, right? But in order for that spark to turn into a flame, in order for it to last, It has, you have to have a certain kind of lasting motivation, right? You have to work for a cause. You have to work for somebody you wanna dedicate your work to. Sometimes people who have others actually depending on them, whether it's teammates or other success at stake, statistically actually perform better.

Yeah. He gives, he says that, you know, we find our deepest reserves of resolve when an entire group is relying on us, right? Feeling that sense of belonging that like, hey, my, my family, my community, my society. And then if you can expand that to my world depends on me, you feel motivated. Like, I need to clean the environment because my world is depending on me. That's a powerful feeling. And, and that's hard to maybe feel for most of us. So maybe we can make it smaller. Like, my family depends on me. You know, he has this quote about how in the Golden 13, one of the members said, we learned to walk so that the ones behind us could run. I'm not doing this just for myself, but it's like I'm doing this for a whole group of people who are going to come after me. And I want to blaze this trail so that we can— I can make my parents proud. I can make my children proud in that the following generations can improve. And I think when we live for something greater than us, it's— then you have this everlasting motivation. The fire is lit and you can keep going because it makes you resilient because you're not just doing this for myself.

Absolutely. And I think that's a really interesting perspective coming from you as, you know, a family man, somebody who has a family depending on him. And I think it's really important for me to hear, right? Because I'm the one who's expected to run, right? So I think that I'm really glad you were able to share that. As Maya Angelou said, right, I do my best because I'm counting on you counting on me. And the author finishes out this chapter and this part by saying, Often when people achieve their big goal or their success, they look back at all they have done. This shows them that not only the high points matter, the lowest points are the ones that give them momentum to climb the peaks.

Absolutely.

Is a form of growth.

Um, yeah, no, absolutely. And, and I think, I think when you're in a low moment that the reading, you know, this is exactly what you need to know. All the last couple things we talked about, the last couple chapters really, it's like You're not— the journey, the progress journey is not linear. It takes time. Sometimes you're gonna take steps backward. You need to get unstuck and, and try, try to change your path. And you may need the right people to help you along that path. Um, but at the end of the day, having that motivation and the right source of motivation, you will keep progressing. And, and, uh, don't get, don't get, don't worry about when you're in a low, cuz there'll be highs that come.

And that brings us to the end of part 2 of Hidden Potential by Adam Grant. This episode has been a blast. We've covered so many topics, everything from teamwork and coaching to maintaining harmonious passion, deliberate play, and even the importance of the temporary plateau. I want to say a big thank you to you, Mr. Gandhi, and I want to say a big thank you to everyone tuning in. Don't forget to keep on learning, keep on changing, and keep on growing. We'll see you next time.