What’s your hidden potential?
I just finished reading another book by Adam Grant, a professor at Wharton in Philadelphia, this one is called “Hidden Potential.” It really hit home with me when he shared examples of people who intentionally seek out being uncomfortable, and then they push through that discomfort and use it as a catalyst for their success. Specifically, he gave examples of people who are polyglots, people who are fluent in many more languages than me, and who were not good at learning languages when they were young. When we’re young, it’s supposed to be easier to learn a new language. These people learned many new languages as adults, despite being poor at it as kids.
Are you only doing things that are within your comfort zone? Are you only trying new things you know you can be good at? Listen to this new 7-minute episode for inspiration on finding success in your discomfort.
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What’s your hidden potential? Listen to this episode, see where I’m going with this. Hi, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions Podcast. I just finished reading or listening to another book by Adam Grant, who’s a professor at the Wharton School in Philadelphia.
If you’ve not Listen to his other books or read his other books. This one was called Hidden Potential. I’ve probably mentioned him a few times because I love reading his stuff. He’s got a podcast as well. But it, you know, different ones that really touched me because they’re so usable. And this one hit me as well.
So Hidden Potential is talking about exactly that within us, people that have achieved amazing things. despite the challenges and despite maybe having failed in the past. And one of the things that struck me about what he said was when he was talking about, are you okay with being uncomfortable? And where the really resonated with me is because he was talking about people who are polyglots, which are people who are fluent in multiple languages.
And as many of you know, I taught myself Spanish, which I consider myself fluent, although I could be better. I’m working on French and I’ve just recently started Italian because I might be going to Italy next year to speak at a conference. So I figured maybe learn a little bit of Italian along the way.
And what was interesting is a lot of the people that are extreme polyglots, so they, there could be five, six, seven, eight languages or more. A lot of them were considered. Or at learning languages earlier in their life when they were younger, which you would think when you would be better at learning is when you were a child, but these are people who actually learned later.
And I certainly can relate to that because I was much, much older when I started learning Spanish and then French and now Italian. And one of the things that was consistent with them. Is the ability to be uncomfortable or actually seeking out the discomfort and that it is in that discomfort and working through the discomfort that you actually succeed as opposed to a lot of people that give up, it gets hard and then they give up.
For me, some of my favorite days or favorite lessons when I’m doing a language lessons is when it’s kicking my butt because it proves to me what I don’t know. And I’m going to say that again. It proves to me what I don’t know and knowing that I don’t know and wanting to learn it. Is what the guide is for me is what the impetus is for me to keep going.
So think about yourself and think about something that you’ve achieved after having gone through some difficulty there, what helped you push through that? What is it that helps you push through and get where you are, which could be starting your business and it could be having some tough times. It could have been the pandemic that we powered through and all these different things.
If you think about it, things that you’ve achieved in your life. a lot of them were because you had to go through difficulty. And the, what he’s saying in the book is that seeking out the discomfort, actually looking to make yourself uncomfortable and then working through that is how you achieve more and more and more.
And I think there are so many parallels to that in our business. There are so many parallels to that in our life. For me, again, I started Taekwondo when I was 39, not when I was nine or 19, like a lot of people would. And doing that. So you have the physical challenges of, of being older. I did stop because I hurt my back at 46 second degree black belt, but I hurt my back at 46, but now again, the languages and other things that we do, how do you purposely make yourself uncomfortable so that you can work through that instead of just seeking out the comfort zone, I did a presentation.
I remember years ago at wedding MBA about getting outside of your comfort zone. You know, if we’re only doing things that are comfortable and that we know we can be good at. How do we actually grow? It’s seeking out the unknown. It’s seeking out, maybe it’s not discomfort necessarily. Maybe it’s just the unknown and seeking that out.
But, you know, I like when a crossword puzzle is hard and then I get the answer without looking it up. Or I’ve started doing Wordle as well. You know, when it’s hard, it’s like, wait a minute. There’s not that many words that can be this. What is this? David Hoyt, I know you do that every day. So now I understand, I understand the draw of that.
And part of the draw is succeeding when it’s hard and that’s where you find your hidden potential. Your hidden potential is not in doing the things you already know you’re good at. Your hidden potential is, is doing things that you don’t know you’re good at. Back when I was in the corporate world and I was reading a lot of resumes, I came to the realization that resumes are what you have been given the chance to do.
They’re not what you’re capable of. And I remember hiring people and at different times where the resume really didn’t fit the job, but the person seemed to. And I said to them, you know what, on paper, it doesn’t look like you have the qualifications for this, but I think you can do that. So I’m going to hire you and I want you to prove me right.
And it’s again, giving people that impetus to say, show me, yeah, it might be hard, but show me that you can do this. Prove to me and yourself that you can do this. So I think we can do this in our personal lives. I think we can do this in our business lives where we can keep growing because if you’re not growing in your business, somebody else is.
And when they pass you by, it’s not their fault. It’s yours for not. You know, you always want to be looking at your competitors in your rearview mirror so that they’re trying to catch up to you. And you know what? They will. And that’s okay. As long as you keep moving forward. I don’t know who it is, but somebody said to me at Wedding MBA this year, and I apologize for not remembering who it was.
It’s only 5, 000 people there. But somebody said, you know, Alan, I heard you speak years ago, probably five years ago, and I thought you were good then, but don’t, don’t take this the wrong way. But I think you’re so much better now. And I said, no, that that’s an extreme compliment because I’m always trying to be better.
And if you notice that I’m better, even though you thought it was good, if you notice that I’m better, it means I’m accomplishing just that. So are you doing the same thing? Are you on, are you tapping into your hidden potential because you’re pushing yourself to try things that are new? To do things that are hard and not shy away from it when the difficulty comes, but actually push through that.
Seth Godin had a book about this also called the dip, where you start something that’s exciting and all, and you’re making progress and all of a sudden you dip. It just doesn’t feel like you’re making any progress and you feel like you’re in this trough and can you power your way out the other side?
Can you power way up the, you know, the other side of that dip and that’s where the success is. And that’s where it really happens. So. Where is your hidden potential now? What are you avoiding because it’s hard? What are you avoiding because it, it would be, it might be difficult or you might not be good at it.
Another lesson that I learned is it’s okay not to be good at everything. It’s okay to try something, find out you’re not good at it, but if you enjoyed the process. That was enough. So tap into your hidden potential. If you haven’t read this book by Adam Grant called Hidden Potential, please do so. So many of his other books are great as well, but I’m just going to leave you with that one, not to confuse this.
You’ll find them when you look on Amazon or wherever you look for that. And let me know about your successes with this. Thanks for listening.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected]. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
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