“Everyone has hidden potential. This book is about how we unlock it. There’s a widely held belief that greatness is mostly born-not made. That leads us to celebrate gifted students in school, natural athletes in sports, and child prodigies in music. But you don’t have to be a wunderkind to accomplish great things. My goal is to illuminate how we can all rise to achieve greater things.”

“Of course, there were students who excelled after fewer practice sessions. But they weren’t faster learners-they improved at the same rate as their peers. What set them apart was that they showed up to the first practice session with more initial knowledge…What look like differences in natural ability are often differences in opportunity and motivation.”

“When we assess potential, we make the cardinal error of focusing on starting points-the abilities that are immediately visible. In a world obsessed with innate talent, we assume the people with the most promise are the ones who stand out right away. But high achievers vary dramatically in their initial aptitudes. If we judge people only by what they can do on day one, their potential remains hidden.”

“You can’t tell where people will land from where they begin. With the right opportunity and motivation to learn, anyone can build the skills to achieve greater things. 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.”

“Character is often confused with personality, but they’re not the same. Personality is your predisposition-your basic instincts for how to think, feel, and act. Character is your capacity to prioritize your values over your instincts.”

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

“If we wait until we feel ready to take on a new challenge, we might never pursue it at all. There may not come a day when we wake up and suddenly feel prepared. We become prepared by taking the leap anyway.”

“Being a sponge is more than a metaphor. It’s a character skill-a form of proactivity that’s vital to realizing hidden potential. Improving depends not on the quality of information you seek out, but the quality of the information you take in. Growth is less about how hard you work than how well you learn.”

“It’s easy for people to be critics or cheerleaders. It’s harder to get them to be coaches. A critic sees your weaknesses and attacks your worst self. A cheerleader sees your strengths and celebrates your best self. A coach sees your potential and helps you become a better version of yourself.”

“Instead of seeking feedback, you’re better off asking for advice. Feedback tends to focus on how well you did last time. Advice shifts attention to how you can do better next time. In experiments, that simple shift is enough to elicit more specific suggestions and more constructive input. Rather than dwelling on what you did wrong, advice guides you toward what you can do right.”

“If perfectionism were a medication, the label would alert us to common side effects. Warning: may cause stunted growth. Perfectionism traps us in a spiral of tunnel vision and error avoidance: it prevents us from seeing larger problems and limits us to mastering increasingly narrow skills.”

“Character skills aren’t always enough to travel great distances. Many new skills don’t come with a manual, and steeper hills often require a lift. That lift comes in the form of scaffolding: a temporary support structure that enables us to scale heights we couldn’t reach on our own. It helps us build the resilience to overcome obstacles that threaten to overwhelm us and limit our growth.”

“Scaffolding unleashes hidden potential by helping us forge paths we couldn’t otherwise see. It enables us to find motivation in the daily grind, gain momentum in the face of stagnation, and turn difficulties and doubts into sources of strength.”

“Deliberate play is a structured activity that’s designed to make skill development enjoyable. It blends elements of deliberate practice and free play. Like free play, deliberate play is fun, but it’s structured for learning and mastery along with recreation.”

“Obsession leads us to see rest as taking a foot off the gas pedal. We don’t stop until we’ve pushed ourselves to the edge of exhaustion-it’s a price to pay for excellence. Under harmonious passion, it’s easier to recognize that rest is a supply of fuel. We take regular reprieves to maintain energy and avoid burnout. Relaxing is not a waste of time-it’s an investment in well-being. Breaks are not a distraction-they’re a chance to reset attention and incubate ideas. Play is not a frivolous activity-it’s a source of joy and a path to mastery.”

“A rut is not a sign that you’ve tanked. A plateau is not a cue that you’ve peaked. They’re signals that it may be time to turn around and find a new route…Gaining momentum often involves backing up and navigating your way down a different road-even if it’s not the one you initially intended to travel.

“Languishing is the emotional experience of stalling. You may not be depressed or burned out, but you definitely feel blah. Every day starts with a case of the Mondays. You’re muddling through the moments, watching your weeks go by in shades of gray.”

“In the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, it can be tempting to give up. It’s just too hard; the forces against us are just too strong. At times like this, we’re advised to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. The message is that we need to look inside ourselves for hidden reserves of confidence and know-how. But it’s actually in turning outward to harness resources with and for others that we discover-and develop- our hidden potential. When the odds are against us, focusing beyond ourselves is what launches us off the ground.”

“When we’re facing a daunting task, we need both competence and confidence. Our ability to elevate our skills and our expectations depends first on how we interpret the obstacles in front of us. Extensive evidence shows that when we view hurdles as threats, we tend to back down and give up. When we treat barriers as challenges to conquer, we rise to the occasion.”

“Teaching others can build our competence. But it’s coaching others that elevates our confidence. When we encourage others to overcome obstacles, it can help us find our own motivation.”

“It’s easier to overcome obstacles when we’re carrying a torch for people who matter to us. When others are counting on us, we find strength we didn’t know we had.”

“In organizational psychology, culture has three elements: practices, values, and underlying assumptions. Practices are the daily routines that reflect and reinforce values. Values are shared principles around what’s important and desirable-what should be rewarded versus what should be punished. Underlying assumptions are deeply held, often taken-for-granted beliefs about how the world works. Our assumptions shape our values, which in turn drive our practices.”

“Leaders play an important role in establishing cohesion. They have the authority to turn independent individuals into an interdependent team. But all too often, when it comes time to decide who takes the helm, we fail to consider the glue factor.”

“Success is more than reaching our goals-it’s living our values. There’s no higher value than aspiring to be better tomorrow than we are today. There’s no greater accomplishment than unleashing our hidden potential.”