Transcript

What Is Your Full Potential — with Adam Grant and Oprah

From Oprah · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 43 min · 8,270 words · 121 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "What Is Your Full Potential — with Adam Grant and Oprah", an episode of Oprah published January 6, 2026 (43 min, about 8,270 words). It mentions 28 people, works and ideas, including Hidden Potential, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things, Personality, Adam Grant, Nick & Ari Ashley.

What this episode is about

In a conversation between Oprah and Adam Grant, they explore the theme of unlocking full potential, emphasizing the significance of character development over mere personality. Grant shares insights on overcoming impostor syndrome and encourages individuals to recognize and embrace their hidden potential, offering guidance for graduates and those navigating anxiety in professional settings.

Key takeaways

  • Impostor syndrome is widespread; even the best need a coach to see their hidden potential.
  • Character is the unsung hero in personal growth; it's skills, not traits that drive transformation.
  • Failing early doesn't mean quitting; persistence can turn late bloomers into early achievers.
  • We often limit ourselves by first impressions; remember, mastery takes time and effort, not just talent.
  • Public speaking is a skill, not an innate ability; practice can transform fear into confidence.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Personality, Character skills, Hidden Potential, Adam Grant
  2. – 10:00: Adam Grant, Hidden Potential, Personality
  3. – 15:00: Personality, Babel effect
  4. – 20:00: Nick & Ari Ashley, Hidden Potential, Move by Move, Peter principle
  5. – 25:00: Hidden Potential, Benjamin Bloom, Christy Lundstrom, Mount Vernon School
  6. – 30:00: Cake Time, Design thinking, Hidden Potential
  7. – 35:00: Frankie, Hidden Potential, Lewis University, Zeno Group
  8. – 40:00: Hidden Potential, Mississippi
  9. – 42:52: Adam Grant, Apple Podcast, Best way to learn is to teach, Frankie

Notable quotes from "What Is Your Full Potential — with Adam Grant and Oprah"

  • His most recent book is called Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things. It resonated so with me because I believe now more than ever that we all have to find a way to.
    about Hidden Potential · at
  • Wow. And you also write that growth requires much more than a mindset. It begins with character skills. You say character is often confused with personality, but they're not the same.
    about Character skills · at
  • Biggest egos end up assuming the mantle at a great cost to teams and organizations. It's called the Babel effect. Explain that.
    about Babel effect · at
  • Resonated most for me was their secret weapon. their coach was a young immigrant named Maurice Ashley, who would go on to become a chess grandmaster, but at the time was just an avid chess player.
    about Nick & Ari Ashley · at
  • Go. But we know from extensive evidence that's not true. I love this study that Benjamin Bloom did looking at worldclass scientists, mathematicians artists musicians athletes, and trying to reverse engineer what was different about their.
    about Benjamin Bloom · at
  • I just love that. Talking about teachers, we have Molly who's joining us on Zoom from Mount Vernon School in Atlanta. Molly is the head of kindergarten to fifth grade. I just Oh my gosh. When the minds are so right.
    about Mount Vernon School · at
  • Three, I would say number one, there's a practice in Denmark in schools that I love called Cake Time where every week a different kid brings in a pastry for the class and has…
    about Cake Time · at
  • We've got one more person joining us on Zoom. Frankie zooming in from her dorm room in Illinois.
    about Frankie · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Adam Grant — Person · 3 mentions · first at
    Your personality. We're going to talk about that and so much more. Welcome to the tea house, Adam Grant.
  • Nick & Ari Ashley — Person · 3 mentions · first at
  • Frankie — Person · 3 mentions · first at
  • Sara Blakely — Person · 2 mentions
  • Eric Best — Person · 1 mention · first at
    And I was so lucky to have a coach, Eric Best, who saw more potential in me than I saw in myself. And Eric said, I will never cut a diver who wants to be here.
  • Benjamin Bloom — Person · 1 mention · first at
  • Christy Lundstrom — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Of three. the impact of the book started at the end of last year where our head of school, Christy Lundstrom, asked all 278 faculty and staff at Mount Vernon to read Hidden Potential as a part of our summer plus learning.
  • Alexander Shabalov — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

Companies & orgs

  • Mount Vernon School — Company · 1 mention · first at
  • Lewis University — Company · 1 mention · first at
    I currently go to Lewis University with a I have a focus in PR and advertising. And I just want to start off by saying I really resonated with what you were talking about when.
  • Zeno Group — Company · 1 mention · first at
    You were discussing imposttor syndrome. I actually recently did an internship with a place called Zeno Group and I was on the marketing team and I felt like I had imposttor…
  • Apple Podcast — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Go well. You can subscribe to the Over Podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week. Thanks everybody.
  • Spanx — Company · 1 mention

Products & tech

Concepts & topics

  • Personality — Concept · 6 mentions · first at
    Our character and he talks a lot about character in the book. Character is not your personality. We're going to talk about that and so much more. Welcome to the tea house, Adam Grant.
  • Character skills — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
  • Babel effect — Concept · 1 mention · first at
  • Peter principle — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Lot of leaders get promoted to their own level of incompetence. I'm sure you know it as the Peter principle.
  • Cake Time — Concept · 1 mention · first at
  • Design thinking — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    School to create systems where that can happen. I'm thinking of we're a school of design thinking. So we like for kids to be able to solve real world problems by interviewing…
  • Best way to learn is to teach — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    That's beautifully put. I think the Yeah, the best way to learn is to teach and you've always been a teacher.
  • Looping (education) — Concept · 1 mention
  • Organizational psychology — Concept · 1 mention

Places & events

  • Mississippi — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Oh, I think about it all the time. I literally have gone from Mississippi, rural Mississippi to Monaceto. So I, I look in my own backyard every day and I am in awe, in amazement in what I've been able to achieve, what.
  • Montecito — Place · 1 mention

Full transcript with timestamps

So, Adam, I am graduating in May of 2026. I really, really resonated when you were discussing imposttor syndrome. I recently did an internship and I felt like I had imposttor syndrome every day. What advice can you give me graduating? Like, what do I do? Where do I start? Like, how do I not feel like the most anxious person in the room at all times?

Hi everyone. I'm so delighted to be with you here on the Oprah podcast where one of my goals is um to bring you ideas that can allow you to grow and imagine a new vision for your life. I've always had the the deepest belief in the power of our human potential and I'm always searching for ways to do better and be better and live more fully to open myself to possibility. And my guest today is one of the foremost leaders on finding meaning and motivation and personal growth. He's a New York Times bestselling author of six books that have sold millions of copies and been translated into 45 different languages.

His most recent book is called Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things. It resonated so with me because I believe now more than ever that we all have to find a way to prioritize our character and he talks a lot about character in the book. Character is not your personality. We're going to talk about that and so much more. Welcome to the tea house, Adam Grant.

Thank you, Oprah. I'm so honored to be here and I think it's safe to say that your potential is not hidden.

Thank you. But it made me think about what is my hidden potential. Yes, it did. It made me think think about that maybe there are things that I have not you know uh acknowledged or absorbed or been open to certainly did open me up. Yes, it did.

All right. I can't wait to see where that goes. I can't wait to see where it goes. Now, you wrote in the book for everyone, you said in this book that for everyone who has ever felt underrated or overlooked. Um, but it's not just for underdogs. You said long shots and late bloomers. It's all about how we can make sure that we get a chance in schools and teams and workplaces. And so, what was going on with you that you knew that this is the book that the culture needed in this moment?

I think I just saw a lot of people underestimate others and also underestimate themselves. And I think there's there's nothing sadder than than watching motivation and talent get wasted

and squandered. And I think [snorts] we still live in a world where people judge themselves and other people by how good they are at something when they start.

And if you you pick up a skill and you say, "Well, I didn't master that right away. I guess it's not for me." And I think that's a huge mistake. I saw this demonstrated so powerfully when you were I saw you speaking and you had used the example of diving.

Yes. You want to share that story? I was so bad at diving, Oprah. I think I I don't know if you could see it in the video but

you were in the beginning you were not so good. I was horrible. Yeah. Uh I walked like Frankenstein. I could hardly jump. Yeah.

Uh I couldn't touch my toes without bending my knees. And I I probably should have quit based on my early failures. I was the worst diver in my whole school, but I'd already been cut from basketball and soccer, and I was I was running out of options.

Mhm. And I was so lucky to have a coach, Eric Best, who saw more potential in me than I saw in myself. And Eric said, "I will never cut a diver who wants to be here."

Wow. Isn't that powerful? So powerful. And he told me on my very first, it was the first day of practice, I thought it was a try out. And he said, "I will put as much effort into this as you do. And I believe that if you pour yourself into this, you could be a state finalist by the time you graduate from high school.

Wow. And and uh made it junior year a year early and uh ended up on the All-American list and making the Junior Olympic Nationals twice.

Wow. And you also write that growth requires much more than a mindset. It begins with character skills. You say character is often confused with personality, but they're not the same. Please explain. They are not the same. They're not the same.

Not at all. So personality is is your default instinct. It's your tendency for how you naturally would think, feel, or act in a situation.

Character is a set of skills that you develop for overriding those personality traits. So I'm a shy introvert from a personality perspective, but I love sharing knowledge. I really enjoy teaching. I've even come to like public speaking. And it's a bunch of character skills that allowed me to transcend the limitations of my traits and say, "I've got to get comfortable on a stage. I have to push myself to to be in a a moment that I would prefer to avoid in order to live my values."

Yeah. But that doesn't happen unless you actually do it, right? So the way you get to be a better diver is that you dive every day. The way you get to be a better speaker is you actually step into it and do it. So whatever the thing is that makes you uncomfortable and that is the character that allows you to do that not just your personality.

It is and I think for for so long I was frozen by my my personality. Uh so afraid of public speaking I was also afraid of heights. So diving was not a good choice. I remember I remember standing on the diving board one day. I would usually just stand there shaking for five or 10 minutes. And one day I was supposed to do a particularly hard dive with multiple flips and twists. And I just I couldn't I couldn't imagine doing it. I thought I was going to cartwheel and like break an eardrum or just end up in a terrible belly flop or back smack. And I stood frozen on the board for 45 minutes. And then finally Eric said to me, "Adam, are you going to do this dive?" And I remember thinking, "Ever?

Yes, one day I would love to try this dive." And I told Eric and he said,"G"Great. Then what are you waiting for?" And Oprah, I realized in that moment that I had the relationship between action and confidence backward. I thought I had to build my confidence to take the leap, but the only way to gain confidence was by taking the leap. And

Oh, that was that's such a key key element for everybody. You think? I know. Cuz the only way to gain confidence is actually doing it. And you're thinking that you're waiting just like the and and and and you're using this as as a beautiful story and metaphor, but the waiting and the waiting and the waiting. You were waiting because you're thinking you're going to get the confidence to take the leap, but the only way to get the confidence is actually taking the leap. I just think that is invaluable. Well, it's it's certainly been powerful for me and I I think it it tracks with a lot of the the research in psychology which says that for most of us um confidence is the result of making progress and achieving growth. It's not something that you have to marshall before.

Yeah. Yeah. This is what I want to know Adam. I mean, I was just talking to my producer, you know, earlier about you and I was saying, I remember that, you know, Adam's first books, they were really good and people really liked them and responded and now you're considered literally one of the great thought leaders of our time. So I was thinking, oh, you had hidden potential then that we didn't see or recognize and perhaps you didn't see or recognize in yourself. How do you think it's come to be now that you know every organization the Fortune 500 companies the Olympic teams that all everybody wants to consult with you Adam Grant as this you know brilliant and wise researcher and you know literally a a man for our times.

The irony of you asking me that question is not lost on me. I don't know. I I I

you must think about how how did this happen? I I I I definitely wonder that often. Uh I think I mean this is a great this is a great way to activate my inner imposttor syndrome.

Mhm. Right. Of saying what am I doing here? Do I belong in this room? And I think I think it's something I feel a responsibility to try to earn every day. Uh a door opened and I felt like okay I should walk through it and then try to open it for other people. And I think of all the things that

in the beginning when that door opened, you were like nervous speaking in front of people

extremely. Yeah. Yeah. And the Yeah. And the the feedback made it clear that everyone could see my anxiety and they were absorbing it from me.

Yes. That's what happens. Yeah. And I just I think like you were alluding to earlier um I just kept running little experiments and saying, "Okay, that didn't work. What if I try this?" And very often um what helped me the most was taking the people who didn't like what I was doing who you know didn't like love a chapter of a book or didn't resonate with a a talk that I gave

and asking them for more only instead of asking them for more criticism I would ask for advice

for how can I do this better yeah what can I change and I I figure you know what these critics have already crucified me why don't I enlist them as my coaches

that's so brilliant really that is some of them were really helpful really. I I found that too when I was, you know, first starting out, you know, that uh some of the criticism that I received was actually I was thinking, "Oh, yeah, he's right. I do talk too much. Oh, he's right. I'm not listening enough. Oh, he's right." So, I would learn from criticism that was not just mean-spirited. You know,

how did you decide which critiques to listen to and which ones to discard? Because some some crit critics were just out to, as people would say today, get clickbait or get make a headline or to say, "Oh, you know, everybody thinks she's so popular. I'm going to take her down." You could feel the energy of that. You could also feel the energy of somebody who um was literally just telling you what they saw and what they experienced. And so I learned from it. You know, when somebody is speaking the truth and you hear the truth, it resonates. Like I'm sure the same thing happened for you. Correct.

It did. The reason why it's so hard to get people to tell the truth now is because there's so few people who are acting out of character and not just acting out of their personality and their ego. So, it's really hard when you don't have grounded principles of your character where you're just operating on personality, which you talk a lot about in this book, and you say that the true test of character is whether you manage to stand by your values when the deck is stacked against you. If personality is how you respond on a typical day, character is how you show up on a hard day. I just love that. How do you know how I I know how I've learned to do it.

I mean, I I always try to do the right thing, especially when nobody else is looking. Especially when nobody else is looking because I want to be able to live with myself. And also because, you know, for my own spiritual principles, I believe that what is always happening is what you're putting out is coming back. And so for me, if I do something and I know that it lacks integrity or doesn't stand to hold up to my the my the values that I hold for my own character, I know that that thing's coming back. It's going to slap me and I'm going to get slapped in direct proportion to whatever it was. So what what has it been like for you to stand in your own values? I think for me, I've I found it really helpful to think about who am I representing and who do I want to be proud of me?

I think most people answer that question by thinking about their parents or their grandparents or, you know, some some group of people who paved the way for them.

And I think that can be motivating, but I also think that that it's sometimes constraining

that people feel a lot of pressure from their parents to live up to to their expectations. And I never had that.

You never felt that? No, I didn't feel like I No, I because I came from a very different background. But no, but as you were asking the question, I'm thinking, well, who would that be for myself? I don't know.

Well, I think I've I found it really powerful to shift the lens and say, you know, it's it's really not it's not it's not that important to think about being a good descendant. It's important to be a good ancestor. And so, I'm not that worried about making my parents proud. I want to make my kids proud. M

and I want to be, you know, instead of being a custodian of the past, I want to be a good steward of the future. And to do that, I have to stand by my principles when they're tested. Uh when the battle is uphill and for those who don't have children, if the question is, okay, who are the mentees?

Um who are the people younger than you that you want to set an example for? And so that has been your guiding principle of what would my kids say? What would my kids think? How would I am I doing this for my kids? But before you had kids, you had values and you had character. So what was who you who were you doing it for then? I

I think the first time I remember thinking about it was I want to represent my students well. I don't want to embarrass them and have them say, wait a minute, I took a class from that guy.

Do you ever ask I want to represent myself? Well, do you ever do it for yourself?

Yeah, sometimes. But it it feels a little self-centered to think about it that way

really. And I I don't attach the same meaning to it that I do when it's for somebody else. You

I get that. I get that. But I'm I'm now I'm going to live with that. Who am I doing it for? What am I doing it for? I've always thought I was doing it for myself. But maybe I'm thinking about something else. Maybe I'm thinking about what other people would think if I didn't, you know. So you write when writing about leaders you say we mistake confidence for competence, certainty for credibility and quantity for quality. Too often the people with the poorest pro-social skills of the biggest egos end up assuming the mantle at a great cost to teams and organizations. It's called the Babel effect. Explain that.

H the babel effect is the bane of my existence as an organizational psychologist. It's where the person who talks the most in a meeting is the most likely to get elevated to a leadership role because people look to that person and they say, "Wow, they they had a lot to say and they had a lot of confidence and therefore they must be reliable."

Um, and in fact, it's often the person not who talks the most, but rather listens best that's best equipped to lead the room.

Absolutely. And you learned that for yourself. How? Oh, I think I learned that by watching a lot of leaders uh get promoted to their own level of incompetence. I'm sure you know it as the Peter principle.

Yes, Lord. It's It's so frustrating to watch. You're good at a job, you get promoted. You're good at the next job, you get promoted, and at some point, you're not good at it anymore, and you get stuck there. And I do not think that organizations ought to run that way, but too many of them do.

Yeah. And and also, most people don't have the courage to say and are not going to say, "Well, you know what? I was really really good here and now I'm I'm I'm out of my league.

This is not the right place for me. This is not the right place for me. So, um you share a story in the prologue that you call um he calls growing roses from concrete. I love that. And it's about the raging rooks chess team from Harlem. And I know you love this story. Tell us why

this story. Why? It's it's an extraordinary story on so many levels. So, you have a group of poor racial minorities from Harlem.

Yeah. Who are going to play chess and they don't have any of the advantages of the elite private schools that they're competing against,

right? They don't have the world-class teachers. They don't have the assessment when they're kindergarteners and first graders trying to identify the most talented players and then put them in special chess training at the chess equivalent of Olympic training center.

Uh they don't have any of it. And yet, as middle schoolers, they end up making it to the finals at nationals and winning a national championship. And it's a it's a great underdog story, Oprah. But that's not the part that resonated most for me. The part that resonated most for me was their secret weapon. Uh their their coach was a young immigrant named Maurice Ashley, who would go on to become a chess grandmaster, but at the time was just an avid chess player.

Yeah. and he taught them completely upside down. He broke all the rules of how you build a great chess team. And I think it it tells us something very powerful about how we all learn.

And he wrote a book called Move by Move. Yes. Great book about decision making.

Yeah. On and off the chessboard. So joining us from his home in Florida, Maurice Ashley, coach of the Raging Rooks and the first black grandmaster in chess history. What a pleasure to meet you. I read you fell in love with chess when you were what 14 after you've moved from Jamaica to Brooklyn.

What was it about the game that hooked you? Well, first of all, it's an honor to be with two of my most inspiring people in the world. Uh Adam is such an amazing person and Adam, your book is fantastic. And Oprah, I've been waiting 26 years for this interview. So

Oh, well, you should call me. For goodness sakes. For goodness sakes, Maurice moment with me.

Oh my gosh. Why didn't you tell me, Maurice? Maurice, you should have told him. He would have Listen, this would have happened much sooner.

I didn't know he had that kind of pull. Are you kidding? I've I've even emulated your hairstyle. Come on, Maurice.

Yeah. You didn't know he had all that hidden potential. That's the thing. Yes. Well, it it really is a pleasure. To answer your question, chess is magical. It really just is. It's been around for 1500 years. There's nothing I had to do to be attracted to it because it is that the pieces themselves are epic. Uh they're mythical, if you will. People fall in love with chess because of those. First of all, the way the pieces look. You've got, come on, kings, queens bishops knights rooks and pawns. It's a it's a example of the world, a world long gone. And so it has that historic nature and this mythical quality and then the complexity of it.

It's a puzzle inside of an enigma that you try to solve and you never do. So for me as someone who was always uh after puzzles and and trying to solve crossword puzzles or sudoku or you name it, chess just became that thing that I could never solve and I became enraptured by I read that Maurice that you had to learn the con concept of to become be. What does that mean to you?

Well, that was a big lesson I learned later in my journey when a grandmaster, his name is Alexander Shabbarov, had witnessed me losing a big game as I was trying to get the title of grandmaster. And he said that to me. He said after watching me really fumble and be nervous in a critical moment, he said, "In order to become a grandmaster, you have to first be a grandmaster."

Wow. And you know that sounds like Yoda talking to you at first, but then for some reason it just

dawned on me that this makes so much sense. What I had been doing is pursuing the goal of trying to get those points that give you the Grandmaster title. you have to win x number of games, get this number of rating points. But the truth is that the journey is what gives value to the destination and it's the process that really matters. And if you start if you keep thinking that it's about where I'm going, then you miss the whole character building that takes place all along the way. So, when you finally get to that grandmaster moment, which happened for me in a big game in New York uh back in 1999, you're already a grandmaster. You just have to make the moves because you build those qualities already.

Wow. I just love that. So, what do you want people to know, Maurice, about your book, Move by Move, the life lessons on and off the chessboard, about what chess has taught you? What is what do you think is the fundamental greatest lesson you've learned that is a metaphor for all of us to take?

There are so many lessons from chess. I mean it is a game of metaphors. It's not just about checkmating other people but it is about growth. It is about as I mentioned respecting the journey. Yes. respecting the the character building qualities that you get along the way and big lessons like listening to your opponent. I mean, your opponent is your greatest teacher. When they're whipping you on the chessboard, you're getting lessons in real time. And it's what you take from those lessons, the mistakes you make, the games you lose that makes you grow and gives you that resiliency as you face adversity. and being able to offer it to children who wouldn't ordinarily be exposed to it. That's got to be one of the great joys of your life.

It's kind of curious because I stumbled on that in life. It wasn't something that I had decided I wanted to do. It's actually someone who came to me and said, you know, I think you'll make a great teacher and I I wasn't sure on that, but uh the pay was good, so I decided to do it. And then I found myself completely wrapped up in their growth and what I could offer them. And kids are like sponges. If you show them that respect, they're ready to learn. They want to be great. And it just became one of the things that I did as long the journey of trying to become better myself. As Adam mentioned, it just became so satisfying to help others as well. And there's nothing like helping kids grow. You see when the light goes off in their eyes and you know that you were a part of contributing to the magic of them becoming better people.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much, Maurice. We finally met. It happened. It happened because it happened and and this was the right time. It's a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. You you you you argue in the book that potential is often misjudged or overlooked. What do you think is fundamentally broken about how society evaluates potential today? Adam,

I think the the basic challenge that most people run into is they judge potential based on ability instead of motivation. So they look at your your starting skill level and they think, "Okay, that's the main driver of where you're going to go." But we know from extensive evidence that's not true. I I love this study that Benjamin Bloom did uh looking at worldclass um scientists, mathematicians artists musicians athletes, and trying to reverse engineer what was different about their childhoods from everybody else's.

Yes. And I was so surprised when I first read this that they didn't stand out from an ability perspective even in their own school, their own neighborhood, or their own family. They weren't even the most talented kid typically in their household. But when they did stand out, it was not because of unusual ability. It was because of unusual motivation. They had a passion early on for music or for art or for science. and they were really lucky to have an early teacher who nurtured that and helped them uh help them ultimately exceed what they thought their potential was. And I think that what we see there is that people who achieve great things travel great distances. And the question is not where you start, it's how far you travel.

I just love that. Talking about teachers, we have Molly who's joining us on Zoom from Mount Vernon School in Atlanta. Molly is the head of kindergarten to fifth grade. I just Oh my gosh. When the minds are so right. Woo! Woo! Woo! I hear every teacher in your school system just read Hidden Potential. Is that correct?

That is correct. Thank you so much for having me and I'm thrilled to speak on the impact that Hidden Potential has had on me as an educator, but also as a mom of three. Um, the impact of the book started at the end of last year where our head of school, Christy Lundstrom, asked all 278 faculty and staff at Mount Vernon to read Hidden Potential as a part of our summer plus learning.

Did you know this? And after all the teachers Yeah. And after all the teachers read the book over the summer, we reflected how we can truly unlock potential using Adam's work. And we found themes that really help support what we believe about teaching and learning, but also help amplify some of those ideas too as we are a school of inquiry, innovation, and impact. We loved reading about developing pro-social behaviors like Adam's research on kindergarten by starting with questions. And as a formal kindergarten teacher myself, I loved your prologue.

Yep. And we loved that idea of creating a culture of feedback. And we really believe that culture of feedback can lead to a culture of innovation. And as a school, we really lean into trying to elicit feedback from teachers, from families, and even from our kiddos. And for our youngest learners, our teachers had so many takeaways. We love the idea of getting kids comfortable with being uncomfortable. And it really reminded me of public speaking. Talk about being uncomfortable, especially with young students. And we also really love the idea of embracing imperfection and moving away from the idea of searching for perfection.

These are all things Adam is talking about in hidden potential. I just wanted to share with those who haven't read it yet.

Molly knows this book better than I do. I know you're you're you're laying it out for us. Do you have a question for Adam? You have them right here.

Yes. Well, Adam, we also um because our teachers love the book so much, I also received a question um over the summer from a rising first grade parent about your book. She actually quoted your book to me and I told her, "Oh my goodness, we're actually doing an all school read on this book and we normally do a parent book club." And we said, and I asked her, "What do you think about having a lower school parent book club on your book?" And she said, "See you there." So, we actually had parents reading your book, too, alongside us. And that one part that you wrote about character is how you show up on a hard day really helped align parents and educators alike on what we want for our kiddos to unlock the potential with ourselves and the kids in our care. I think my burning question for you, Adam, is if you were to design a school where children and teachers would thrive, what would be your top three priorities of your

design? That's a great question. Well, first of all, let me just say it's a huge honor that you've applied so many principles from the book and I feel like I need to rewrite part of it based on what I've heard just now. Uh, so I I look forward to learning more about what you've been up to. I think to answer your question, I think the if I had to pick a top three, I would say number one, there's a practice in um in Denmark uh in schools that I love called Cake Time where every week a different kid brings in a pastry for the class and has to present a challenge or problem to the room and then they all try to help each other problem solve. And I think it's a great way to to nurture empathy and those pro-social skills that we were talking about. um but also get students in the habit of asking for help and normalizing that kind of vulnerability so that they can better support each other. So that

would be number one. I think number two I I become a pretty big fan of looping as a practice where kids get to take a teacher with them from one grade to another. Um I think the the research is clear across multiple countries that um that allows teachers to not just specialize in their subjects but actually specialize in their students. And there's a a real relationship benefit of that. Uh and I don't think it it's for every class or every teacher, but I think it's something we ought to do more of.

Has it allowed you all as the teachers and administrators to think differently or redefine what it means to be gifted or high potential? Has has has the book allowed you to see differently?

I think um we aligned with his work so much because we always believe that all kiddos have potential. And I think we always believe that it's our job to find that potential within kiddos, but it's also

I love you call them kiddos. All the kiddos do. All the kiddos. It's also our job as a school to create systems where that can happen. Um I'm thinking of uh we're a school of design thinking. So we like for kids to be able to solve real world problems by interviewing each other, building prototypes, getting feedback on their prototypes. So going back to Adam's idea of improving upon improving and that we're all on this journey together and it's not the end goal we're really after. We're really after that process and leaning into the fact that we're not aiming for that perfection that we're all trying to get better at the same time. And our past may be a little loopy and different and that is exactly what we want.

Well, that that speaks to one other thing I would love to see happen in more schools which is knowledge is not static. It's dynamic. And I've seen a couple teachers challenge their students to go and rewrite a chapter of the textbook and try to figure out what needs to be updated. And I think that's a great way to get students into the habit of saying, you know what, I'm just not going to I'm not going to just accept everything that's fed to me. I'm going to go and question it and try to evolve my own knowledge.

Wow, Molly, thank you for sharing that. That's I think it I I I think it brightened Adam's day to know that there's a whole school there, but everybody is using your work throughout the world. But to hear that the kiddos are doing it in this manner, really inspiring. Thank you so much, Molly.

Thank you both. Thanks, Molly. Quite an honor. We've got one more person joining us uh on Zoom. Frankie zooming in from her dorm room in Illinois. Very

Hello. Such a clean dorm room. It looks like senior graduating. That Oh, you cleaned I know you cleaned up for us. You cleaned up for us. I can see that, Frankie.

I had to. I mean, if I was going to be on a podcast with Oprah, I had to have a clean room. Are you going to be

Oh, well. Yeah. Okay. Okay. It's shining through. So, what's your question for Adam?

Um, okay. So, Adam, I am graduating in May of 2026. Um, I currently go to Lewis University with a I have a focus in PR and advertising. And I just want to start off by saying I really really resonated with what you were talking about when you were um discussing imposttor syndrome. I actually recently did an internship with a place called Zeno Group and I was on the marketing team and I felt like I had imposttor syndrome every day. like I, you know, I really love this area of work and I and I do love PR and there's just so many branches that I feel like I either don't understand or I don't belong or I don't fit. Even though I love all of them, it just makes me so anxious that I I I feel like I'm going to pick the wrong place.

And I was just having this conversation with my dad the other day where I was like, you know, I'm so extroverted. I'm so social. I I feel like I'm I'm choosing the right area or the right major, but it gives me so much stress to think like that there is so many branches and there is so much that I can do with it and I don't want to have imposter syndrome 10 years down the line and feel like I picked the wrong job or the wrong branch of my job. Um, so I guess my question for you is honestly just what advice can you give me graduating? Like what do I do? Where do I start? Like how do I not feel like that? How do I not feel like the most anxious person in the room?

How do you tap into this hidden potential and you know make it make it a reality for yourself is also the big question. So you know what he says about about imposttor syndrome is that it's an indication

that you have the hidden potential. The fact that you're there and you're amongst all of these people means you're supposed to be there and you just haven't tapped into it. Means you don't realize you're hidden. Look, he wrote the book. I'll let him tell you. No, I think I think that's a great start. I think so so often when people feel like imposters, they believe their own self-doubt instead of the belief in them that other people have. And I I think that's it's such a paradox because you're saying on the one hand, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't believe in myself. And yet on the other hand, but I definitely know that I don't know what I'm doing. Uh no, you don't. If if you doubt yourself, you should also doubt your judgment of yourself. And I think when multiple people believe in you, it's time to believe them because there's a reason, like Oprah was saying, there's a reason that they put you in

that internship. They think you're either capable today or capable of getting better tomorrow. And I just want to I want to underscore that point. I remember I remember the first time I met Sarah Blakeley. Um

yeah, Sarah, who founded Spanx, uh she had gone from selling fax machines doortodoor to becoming an entrepreneur and starting her own company. And I asked her, "How did you have the confidence to to do that?" And she said, "Well, I didn't I didn't have confidence in my knowledge and skill. I had confidence in my ability to learn."

M good. I thought that was such a great way to think differently about confidence that you don't have to believe in yourself today. You just have to believe in your ability to grow tomorrow.

And do you have that, Frankie? I do. Um I I like to think I'm I'm a very confident person. I think it's just sometimes difficult for me to tap into that. Um I try to speak it into existence. I'm I'm big in manifesting.

Um so I I do believe that about myself. Yes. Okay. Well, I think you need to go for it girl.

Well, I mean, if Oprah is telling me to go for it, I think I'm going to go for it.

You need to go for it. You need to go for it. Go for it and tap into that hidden potential. Okay.

Yeah. Thank you. Well, thank you guys so much. Oh, thank you. And thanks for presenting such a clean room.

Of course. Of course. Only for you. Okay. You say, Adam, we need to foster the will to accept the right imperfections. This is a biggie because so many women, as you know, in particular, struggle with perfectionism. What is your advice [clears throat] for managing the need to be perfect? Well, I feel like as a recovering perfectionist, I'm still struggling with this one, but if I say it enough times, maybe I'll start to listen. I think the the challenge that most people face with perfectionism is you're always looking in the mirror. And if you do that, the flaws are going to be magnified.

And I think what we need to get better at is saying, okay, flawlessness never exists. That's it's an impossible standard. What we should be clear on is what's an aspirational goal that I'm aiming for and what's an acceptable result that if I got it, I would be satisfied. And I I guess Oprah, from my diving days, I I think about most things on a 0 to 10 scale. There's no such thing as a perfect 10. You don't actually even have to be perfect to get a 10. A 10 is for excellence in diving.

And I think about this all the time. I think about when I'm writing a book, I'm aiming for each chapter to get a nine from the different judges I've asked to read it. And I know that if I get nines, it's good enough. Yeah, there are still ways it could have been better, but I'm not going to lose sleep over the fact that I missed out on that 9.5. I think when I when I write a social media post, my bar is a little lower. Like, it's just above I I want to make sure I don't get canceled. So, I'm aiming for a six and a half. And I I don't think we spend enough time thinking about, okay, how important is the task that I'm doing right now or the goal that I'm working toward and what is the bar that I need to hit in order to be satisfied?

And does that change with depending on where you are? Very much so. I think actually maybe this takes us back to something you asked about earlier. I think when I wrote my first two books, I was really aiming for sevens and eights. I couldn't believe that anyone would read anything I wrote.

That's right. And then people read and I felt like I needed to raise the bar. And the great thing about raising that bar is my work got better and I learned a lot. The sad thing was I was more and more dissatisfied with my work cuz I felt like with everything I achieved, the the expectations would rise and the expectations actually rose faster than the achievements. And so there was a bigger and bigger gap between what I accomplished and what I wanted to accomplish.

Uh and that was kind of a recipe for misery. And that's what perfectionists live. And when I sat down and said, "Okay, let me rewind the clock and not judge myself by my standards today, but my standards of 3 and 5 years ago, I started to feel differently. My younger self would be blown away by the progress that I've made and the distance that I've traveled." And maybe I guess I guess you were on to something when you said you thought about making yourself proud.

Yes. I want to make my younger self proud. Yeah. I I I feel I feel like there's not enough attention paid and you do talk about it a lot in Hidden Potential, but there's not uh enough attention paid to the distance we've traveled. Uh and I think so many people are focused on where you need to go, where you need to go. But if you just stop and look, I mean, I do this for myself. I find it as a metaphor for climbing, you know, when I'm hiking. You're like, "Oh my god, I got to get to the top. I got to get to the top." And if you just stop in the middle, turn around, and look at how far you've come, that actually gives you the strength to go further, you know, because where you've come from is like, "I can't believe I walked that far already." And it's the same thing in in our lives, too. I say that to to my girls all the time who are always like anxious about what the future's going to be. And you've graduated from college in

the United States and you have your own job and okay, you're 30 and you thought this was going to be happening, but look at how far you've come.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Appreciating that progress is such an important skill. Oprah, how do you do this in your own life? Do you think about what your younger self would think of where you are now?

Oh, I think about it all the time. I literally have gone from Mississippi, rural Mississippi to Monaceto. So I, you know, I look in my own backyard every day and I am in awe, in amazement in um what I've been able to achieve, what I've been able to accomplish, the blessings I've received, the steps that I had to take to get there. So yeah, I do I think about it a lot. It's hard it's hard not to think about it, you know. And what what then keeps you motivated to say okay but there is another mountain I want to climb.

Uh what keeps me motivated is be okay so now you're interviewing me. Uh so what keeps me motivated of course you are uh what keeps me motivated is understanding that as long as there is breath as long as you are here there's opportunity for growth. That that's what we as human beings do. And that for me a part of the calling and also obviously for you because that is what what you've done with your life is you take what you know you take what you've learned and then you offer that to the rest of the world and that actually makes you grow more. I mean every time you do a seminar every time you teach every time you write a book you become more expanded by the offering that you're giving to the rest of us in the world. That's what works for me. I know that's what has worked for you and I'm sure it also works for a lot a lot of other people.

That's beautifully put. I think the Yeah, the best way to learn is to teach and you've always been a teacher.

Yeah, I've I've always been a teacher and and the soul of myself and all of those years every day on the show, what I really was doing was that was that was that was a classroom for everybody. How do you want us to think differently about what potential could mean for all of us? Not just what we see in other people, but what we see in ourselves. The writing of this book, you ended it and, you know, sent it off to your publisher and knew that you were putting something in the world that would get us all thinking about it differently. What was the ultimate goal for you there?

I didn't know. I hoped. Mhm. I hoped. I think the ultimate goal was to get people to stop counting themselves out and to stop counting other people out. And I think if even one person reads this book and says, you know what, I'm actually capable of more than I thought and I'm going to go pursue a goal that I said, nah, I could never do that. or I'm going to take on a challenge that I thought was beyond my reach, then it's well worth the time that I invested in in trying to write the book.

Well done. I'd say we're going to stop there because we could talk all day about hidden potential, about rising to our potential. Thank you, Adam Grant. Thank you for being who you are. Thank you for continuing to write these books that stimulate the way we think about and the way we see ourselves and the potential for living a better, higher life. Thank you so much. The book is hidden potential and 2026 something to think about calendar daily inspiration to help you question assumptions, rethinking habits and lead with purpose are both available wherever you buy your books. So thank you also to Maurice Ashley. Maurice, it happened today. His book is called Move by Move. And Molly, good luck with your book club and Frankie, best of luck to you on landing that first job. It's going to happen out of college. To our listeners, thank you so much. We'll meet up here next week.

Go well. You can subscribe to the Over Podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week. Thanks everybody.

Questions about this episode

What is "What Is Your Full Potential — with Adam Grant and Oprah" about?

In a conversation between Oprah and Adam Grant, they explore the theme of unlocking full potential, emphasizing the significance of character development over mere personality. Grant shares insights on overcoming impostor syndrome and encourages individuals to recognize and embrace their hidden potential, offering guidance for graduates and those navigating anxiety in professional settings.

What is mentioned in this Oprah episode?

28 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Hidden Potential, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things, Personality, Adam Grant, Nick & Ari Ashley, Move by Move. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "What Is Your Full Potential — with Adam Grant and Oprah"?

The episode runs 43 min; the transcript is about 8,270 words in 121 timestamped sections.

More from Oprah

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.