Last week’s blog introduced the book, Hidden Potential, by Adam Grant. It was a little too long of a book to cover in a blog that’s intended to be a 5 minute read, though, so today will be part II of the book. If you didn’t read the blog last week, you may want to click on it before you read this one.
Adam begins the next chapter talking about deliberate play as a part of learning and developing mastery. He defines this process as, “A structured activity that’s designed to make skill development enjoyable. It blends elements of deliberate practice and free play.” Deliberate play is all about making it fun to develop one’s skills. The idea behind this is that mastery requires countless hours of practice, that when forced and boring can lead to burnout. By making skill building fun, the participant gains a dopamine rush while building their skills. In one example, Stephan Curry, was originally a very underrated basketball player until he met a coach that helped him build skills while having fun. They came up with games where there was always another time or score to beat. Skill building wasn’t ever focused on just one area either. They would mix up a variety of practice methods to build different skills, resulting in all of the benefits of dedicated practice without the tedium. This isn’t just something that works in sports, either. To become great at anything we must practice again and again. Making the practice fun means we are more likely to keep going. Breaks are another important part of practice, though. Research shows 3 things about breaks: Small breaks keep us energized to continue and boost our energy, breaks unlock ideas and creativity, and it actually improves our memory and recall to break after learning something new. Taking time to relax and play while learning gives us a chance to roll things around in our minds as well as an opportunity to enjoy ourselves while we build skills.
A very interesting bit of information from the next chapter points out that our skills don’t really grow at a steady pace. As we get closer to mastery our improvement seems smaller and smaller until, weirdly, our abilities can seem to move backwards. Adam points out that this is completely normal, and he equates it to driving up a mountain and getting to a point in the road where we can go no further. At this point we have no choice but to back up and try to find another path that will take us higher. Personally, I found this to be a relief. Knowing that those setbacks are a normal part of learning and improving takes some of the pressure and panic out of these moments. It may seem like the best thing to do, as we’re trying to learn and gain new skills, is consult with an expert. The problem with this is that experts have often moved so far beyond the fundamentals that they often can’t explain how to help a beginner find what they need. Experts don’t have the same strengths and weaknesses as novices. Adam suggests using multiple guides on our path to learning and improvement. Still, progressing isn’t always very obvious, and when it seems like we have become stagnant it can be very discouraging. Adam says that at this point it’s best to re-engage with hobbies. It turns out that when people have serious hobbies (that are very different from their jobs), their confidence surrounding their jobs improves too.
Often we’re going to find that we come up against obstacles as we work to uncover our hidden potential. The way that we view these obstacles really matters because viewing them as threats can cause us to give up, while seeing them as challenges to overcome helps us to do exactly that. This works best, however, when we work together with a team to take on these challenges. It’s why study groups are so effective. They allow different people within the group to showcase their areas of understanding and then strengthen their own knowledge further through teaching others. We want to make sure that we surround ourselves with the right people too because their expectations of us have both a positive and negative impact on what we can accomplish. This is further influenced, though, by their own knowledge in the area where we struggle. As an example, let’s say that I’m trying to improve soccer skills with touch drills but I keep tripping over my feet. If an experienced soccer coach tells me I’m hopeless and I simply won’t get it, this will probably be very discouraging and make me consider quitting. If the naysayer is someone who has never touched a soccer ball before, I may then take this as a challenge to prove them wrong. On the other hand, if an inexperienced person encourages me, this may not be particularly meaningful because they don’t know what they’re talking about. If the soccer coach is encouraging me to keep at it, I may want to prove them right. The biggest inspiration for overcoming challenges, though, is having something worth fighting for. People who take on challenges for the betterment of others gain an additional level of strength. Adam has a great quote near the end of this chapter, “It’s more important to be good ancestors than dutiful descendants. Too many people spend their lives being custodians of the past instead of stewards of the future. We worry about making our parents proud when we should be focused on making our children proud. The responsibility of each generation is not to please our predecessors–it’s to improve conditions for our successors.”
Come back next week as we wrap up this fantastic book. The remaining chapters focus less on what we can do individually, and more on what we can do collectively to maximize the exposure of hidden potential.