Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

This will be my final Adam Grant book. These are insufferable.

Adam is neither famous nor interesting enough to talk about himself with as much glowing praise as he talks about the rest of the people referenced in the book. Why is there such a long section on how he learned how to dive in high school? So bizarre.

The central premise is that sometimes people who aren't good at something end up being good at something, and then every example is survivorship bias in action. There were some good points about how character traits can be practiced and taught instead of something innate, but that was about it for strengths. Just an endless series of case studies about people doing better than expected.

Finally, as an audiobook listener this was really frustrating. Adam is a great example of an author who should be strongly discouraged from narrating his own book. The edits to make it more like a podcast were pretty frustrating as someone who listens to audiobooks specifically to avoid that style of podcast as well.