The one-sentence summary

In a world obsessed with natural talent we often overlook our own potential for growth, but we can all improve at improving.

Can’t be bothered to read it? Listen to the 5-minute summary in two parts.

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WHAT THE BOOK SAYS

  • We need to shift the focus from inherent genius to the power of learning. Progress depends less on how hard you work than how well you learn. Anyone can rise to achieve greater things. The true measure of your potential is not the height of the peak you’ve reached, but how far you’ve climbed to get there.
  • The book works through three stages:
    1. Skills of character is all about getting better at getting better – embracing the unbearable awkwardness of learning, building the capacity to absorb and adapt, and finding the sweet spot between flawed and flawless. That means being a creature of discomfort, being a human sponge and being an imperfectionist.
    2. Structures for motivation means creating scaffolding to overcome obstacles – transforming the daily grind by infusing passion into practice, getting unstuck by taking the roundabout path to forward progress, and defying gravity through the art of flying by our bootstraps.
    3. Systems of opportunity means opening doors and windows – every child can get ahead if we design schools to bring out the best in students, mining for gold by unearthing collective intelligence in teams, and finding diamonds in the rough (or uncut gems) in job interviews and college admissions.
  • Scaffolding has four important features:
    1. It generally comes from other people.
    2. It is tailored to the obstacle in your path.
    3. It comes at a pivotal point in time.
    4. It is temporary

WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT

  • People who make major strides are rarely freaks of nature – they’re usually freaks of nurture.
  • It’s not where you start, it’s how far you go.
  • Being prosocial is how well people can get along and collaborate with peers.
  • 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.
  • The phrase soft skills has an interesting origin. It was introduced in the 1960s when psychologists were expanding their focus beyond tanks and guns. They called these hard skills because they involved working with weapons made of steel. Behavioural skills were labelled soft. It was later recommended that the phrases were withdrawn because soft suggested weak, but it was too late.
  • Many people associate procrastination with laziness, but it’s not a time management problem – it’s an emotion management problem. You’re not avoiding effort – you’re avoiding the unpleasant feelings that the activity stirs up.
  • The more mistakes you make, the more you learn – something that psychologists call learned industriousness. Sponginess is an absorptive capacity that wants to soak everything up. Such people ask for specific advice rather than general feedback, which is less helpful.
  • In a meta-analysis, the average correlation between perfectionism and performance in work is zero.
  • Aiming for Minimum Viable Product is better approached by going for a Minimum Lovable Product.
  • Burnout is emotional exhaustion that accumulates when you’re overloaded, whereas boreout is the emotional deadening you feel when you are under-stimulated.
  • Relaxing is not a waste of time – it’s an investment in well-being that gives us a chance to rest attention and incubate ideas – but we usually take a break later than we need to for it to be helpful.
  • In schools in Finland, their mantra is: “We can’t afford to waste a brain.”
  • When we select leaders, we don’t usually pick the person with the strongest leadership skills. We frequently choose the person who talks the most. It’s called the babble effect. We mistake confidence for competence.
  • Extraverts make up 33% of the general population, 71% of supervisors, and the figure keeps rising with status until it hits 93% for top-level executives.
  • Brainwriting is more effective than brainstorming. By coming up with ideas on their own, people avoid not wanting to look stupid, having everyone trying to talk at once, and conformity pressure.

WHAT YOU HAVE TO WATCH

  • This is a very helpful look at how anyone can achieve greater things if they put their mind to it.