What Is Your Full Potential — with Adam Grant and Oprah

Summary

Podcast Summary: What Is Your Full Potential — with Adam Grant and Oprah

The Oprah Podcast | Host: Oprah Winfrey | Guests: Adam Grant, Maurice Ashley, Molly, Frankie
Date: January 6, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this inspiring episode, Oprah Winfrey welcomes organizational psychologist and bestselling author Adam Grant, alongside chess grandmaster Maurice Ashley and educator Molly, to discuss what it really means to realize—and misjudge—our full potential. Drawing on Grant's latest book, Hidden Potential, the conversation unfolds around character versus personality, overcoming imposter syndrome, the power of motivation and feedback, fostering growth in schools and organizations, and the importance of embracing imperfection as a path to excellence. Real-life stories from students, educators, and world-class achievers add depth and relatability to the discussion.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Redefining Potential: Beyond Talent to Character and Motivation

• Misjudging Potential

  • Society often confuses potential with starting ability, overlooking more crucial factors such as motivation and the willingness to improve (24:28).
  • "They judge potential based on ability instead of motivation. But we know from extensive evidence that’s not true... people who achieve great things travel great distances. The question is not where you start, it’s how far you travel." — Adam Grant [24:28]

• Character vs. Personality

  • Personality = instinctive, default tendencies; Character = learned skills for overriding those tendencies (04:24).
  • "Character is a set of skills that you develop for overriding those personality traits." — Adam Grant [04:26]
  • Character, not personality, is what allows us to act in alignment with our values on tough days (10:35).

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2. The Confidence-Action Paradox and Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

• Action Creates Confidence

  • Counter to popular belief, confidence follows action—not the other way around (06:24).
  • "The only way to gain confidence is by taking the leap." — Adam Grant [06:24]
  • Oprah and Adam discuss how waiting for confidence can become a trap, using Adam’s diving story as a metaphor.

• Imposter Syndrome Reframed

  • Imposter feelings signal hidden potential waiting to be realized (34:13).
  • "So often when people feel like imposters, they believe their own self-doubt instead of the belief in them that other people have." — Adam Grant [34:39]
  • Trust not only your own doubt, but also the faith others have in you.
  • Confidence need not be in current ability but in our capacity to learn and grow (35:44).
  • "You don’t have to believe in yourself today. You just have to believe in your ability to grow tomorrow." — Sarah Blakely via Adam Grant [35:47]

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3. Learning through Criticism and the Role of Feedback

• Soliciting Advice, Not Just Criticism
  • Instead of asking detractors for more critique, ask them for advice (09:22).
  • Oprah and Adam reflect on their own careers and learning to distinguish between destructive criticism and truth that resonates (10:01).
  • "These critics have already crucified me. Why don’t I enlist them as my coaches?" — Adam Grant [09:30]
  • "When somebody is speaking the truth and you hear the truth, it resonates." — Oprah Winfrey [10:35]

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4. Leadership: The Babel Effect and Listening

• The Babel Effect
  • Those who speak the most in meetings often get promoted—but the best leaders are the best listeners (14:34).
  • "It’s often the person not who talks the most, but rather listens best that’s best equipped to lead the room." — Adam Grant [14:34]
  • Discussion of the Peter Principle—people promoted to their level of incompetence—and the need to acknowledge better fits within organizations (15:06–15:30).

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5. Cultivating Potential in Schools

• Nurturing Growth in Education
  • Educator Molly shares how their school used Hidden Potential as a foundation for sparking innovation and resilience among students and teachers (26:00–28:44).
  • Takeaways include creating a culture of feedback, encouraging comfort with discomfort, and shifting the focus from perfection to process.
• Adam’s Top Priorities for Schools
  • Cake Time: Sharing challenges and building pro-social problem-solving.
  • Looping: Having teachers stay with the same students across grades to deepen relationships.
  • Encouraging students to question, update, and challenge existing knowledge (28:46–31:08).

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6. Stories of Growth: Maurice Ashley & The Raging Rooks

• ‘Growing Roses from Concrete’
  • The Raging Rooks—Harlem chess team—defied expectations under Maurice Ashley’s unconventional coaching, thriving not due to early talent but meaningful motivation and inventive teaching (17:30–18:40).
• The ‘Become Be’ Lesson
  • To “become” a grandmaster, you must first act as one—growth is about embodying the goal before it’s achieved (20:54–22:08).
  • "The journey is what gives value to the destination... it’s the process that really matters." — Maurice Ashley [21:17]
• Chess as a Metaphor for Life
  • Respect for the journey, learning from defeat, and resilience—chess imparts these crucial meta-lessons (22:31).

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7. The Pitfalls of Perfectionism

• Letting Go of Flawlessness
  • Perfection is an unattainable standard; reframe the goal as striving for excellence (“the 9 out of 10”), not perfection (37:23).
  • "Flawlessness never exists. It’s an impossible standard... When I write a book, I’m aiming for each chapter to get a 9 from the different judges I’ve asked to read it. And I know that if I get nines, it’s good enough." — Adam Grant [37:23]
  • Reflect on the distance you’ve traveled; compare yourself to your past self, not just future goals (40:10).
  • Oprah shares the importance of pausing to appreciate personal progress as motivation (41:11).

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8. Motivation Across the Lifespan

• Always Room to Grow
  • Oprah asserts that as long as one is alive, growth remains possible—and teaching or giving back is itself a powerful path to growth (41:55–42:43).
  • "The best way to learn is to teach. And you’ve always been a teacher." — Adam Grant [42:49]

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• "The only way to gain confidence is by taking the leap." — Adam Grant [06:24]
• "Character is a set of skills that you develop for overriding those personality traits.” — Adam Grant [04:26]
• "The journey is what gives value to the destination.” — Maurice Ashley [21:17]
• "Flawlessness never exists. It’s an impossible standard.” — Adam Grant [37:23]
• "Imposter feelings are a sign of hidden potential you just haven’t realized.” — Oprah Winfrey [34:13]
• "If personality is how you respond on a typical day, character is how you show up on a hard day.” — Oprah Winfrey [10:35]
• "I want to make my younger self proud.” — Adam Grant [40:10]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Imposter Syndrome and Early Career Anxieties: [00:00], [32:40], [34:13]
• Introduction to Adam Grant & Hidden Potential: [00:26–02:05]
• Personality vs. Character, Diving Story: [03:00–06:54]
• Action Breeds Confidence: [06:24]
• Learning from Critique and Growth as a Leader: [09:22–10:35], [14:34–15:30]
• Chess & the Raging Rooks Story (with Maurice Ashley): [17:02–24:13]
• Society’s Broken View of Potential: [24:28]
• Education Insights with Molly: [25:39–31:51]
• Perfectionism and Progress: [37:23–42:49]
• Closing Thoughts on Growth and Potential: [42:49–end]

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Overall Tone and Takeaways

Oprah’s signature warmth, empathy, and insight set the tone for a genuine, empowering, and candid exploration of human development. Adam Grant’s scientific approach and accessible anecdotes offer practical frameworks for listeners. The inclusion of Maurice Ashley and Molly delivers relatable proof that potential, while often unseen, can flourish when character, culture, and motivation intersect.

This is a must-listen for anyone feeling held back by imposter syndrome, perfectionism, or self-doubt—or simply seeking inspiration and actionable guidance for realizing their best self.

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Explore the episode and the book, and consider: Where might your hidden potential be waiting—and who might you become if you decide to look for it?

Transcript

[Frankie]

So, Adam, I am graduating in May of 2026. I really, really resonated when you were discussing imposter syndrome. I recently did an internship, and I felt like I had imposter 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?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Hi, everyone. I'm so delighted to be with you here on the Oprah podcast, where one of my goals is to bring you ideas that can allow you to grow and imagine a new vision for your life. I've always had 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. 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 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's not your personality. We're gonna talk about that and so much more. Welcome to the Teahouse, Adam Grant.

[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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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

[Adam Grant]

All right. I can't wait to see where that goes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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. 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.

[Adam Grant]

I think I just saw a lot of people underestimate others and also underestimate themselves. And I think there's nothing sadder than watching motivation and talent get wasted and squandered. And I think we still live in a world where people judge themselves and other people by how good they are at something when they start. And so 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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?

[Adam Grant]

I was so bad at diving, Oprah. I think. I don't know if you could see it in the video, but you were.

[Oprah Winfrey]

In the beginning. You were not so good.

[Adam Grant]

I was horrible.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Adam Grant]

I walked like Frankenstein. I could hardly jump.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Adam Grant]

I couldn't touch my toes without pinning my knees. And 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 running out of options. 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Wow. Isn't that powerful?

[Adam Grant]

So powerful. And he told me on my very first. It was the first day of practice. I thought it was a tryout. 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Wow. And.

[Adam Grant]

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

[Oprah Winfrey]

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.

[Adam Grant]

They are not the same.

[Oprah Winfrey]

They're not the same.

[Adam Grant]

Not at all. So personality 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 be in a moment that I would prefer to avoid in order to live my values.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. But that doesn't happen unless you actually do it.

[Adam Grant]

True.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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.

[Adam Grant]

It is. And I think for so long, I was frozen by my personality. So afraid of public speaking. I was also afraid of heights. So diving was not a good choice. 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 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, 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, 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. Was by taking the leap.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And, oh, that was. That's such a key, key, key, key, key element for everybody.

[Adam Grant]

You think?

[Oprah Winfrey]

I know, because the only way to gain confidence is the actually doing it. And you're thinking that you're waiting just like the. 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. Cause 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.

[Adam Grant]

Well, it's certainly been powerful for me, and I think it tracks with a lot of the research in psychology, which says that for most of us, confidence is the result of making progress and achieving growth. It's not something that you have to marshal before.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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 man for our times.

[Adam Grant]

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

[Oprah Winfrey]

You must think about, how did this happen?

[Adam Grant]

I definitely wonder that often. I think. I mean, this is a great. This is a great way to activate my inner imposter syndrome. Right. Of saying, what am I doing here? Do I belong in this room? And I think it's something I feel a responsibility to try to earn every day. 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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

[Adam Grant]

Extremely.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Adam Grant]

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

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes. That's what happens. Yeah.

[Adam Grant]

And I just. I think, like you were alluding to earlier, I just kept running little experiments and saying, okay, that didn't work. What if I try this? And very often what helped me the most was taking the people who didn't like what I was doing, who, you know, didn't love a chapter of a book or didn't resonate with a talk that I gave and asking them for more. Only instead of asking them for more criticism, I would ask for advice for.

[Oprah Winfrey]

How can I do this better?

[Adam Grant]

Yeah, what can I change? And I figure, you know what, these critics have already crucified me. Why don't I enlist them as my coaches?

[Oprah Winfrey]

That's so brilliant. Really. That is.

[Adam Grant]

Some of them were really helpful.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Really. I found that, too, when I was, you know, first starting out, you know, that 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.

[Adam Grant]

You know, how did you decide which critiques to listen to and which ones to discard?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Because some critics were just out to, as people would say today, get clickbait or make a headline or to say, oh, you know, everybody thinks she's so popular. I'm gonna take her down. You could feel the energy of that. You could also feel the energy of somebody who 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?

[Adam Grant]

It did.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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 know how I've learned to do it? I mean, 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 from 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 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 has it been like for you to stand in your own values?

[Adam Grant]

I think for me, I found it really helpful to think about who am I representing and who do I want to be proud of?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Me.

[Adam Grant]

I think most people answer that question by thinking about their parents or their grandparents or some group of people who paved the way for them. And I think that can be motivating. But I also think that it's sometimes constraining that people feel a lot of pressure from their parents to live up to their expectations and to their parents.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So I never had that.

[Adam Grant]

You never felt that?

[Oprah Winfrey]

No, I didn't feel like, no, 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.

[Adam Grant]

Well, I think I've found it really powerful to shift the lens and say, you know, it's really 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. 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, when the battle is uphill. And for those who don't have children, the question is, okay, who are the mentees? Who are the people younger than you that you want to set an example for?

[Oprah Winfrey]

And so that has been your guiding principle of what would my kids say? What would my kids think? Am I doing this for my kids? But before you had kids, you had values and you had character. So who are you doing it for then?

[Adam Grant]

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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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

[Adam Grant]

Yeah, sometimes. But it, it feels a little self centered to think about it that way, really. And I don't attach the same meaning to it that I do when it's for somebody else. You.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I get that, I get that. But 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, the people with the poorest pro social skills and the biggest egos end up assuming the mantle at a great cost to teams and organizations. It's called the Babel effect. Explain that.

[Adam Grant]

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 had a lot to say and they had a lot of confidence and therefore they must be reliable. 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Absolutely. And you learned that for yourself how?

[Adam Grant]

Oh, I think I learned that by watching a lot of leaders get promoted to their own level of incompetence. I'm sure you know it as the Peter Principle.

[Molly]

Woo.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes.

[Adam Grant]

Lord, 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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

[Adam Grant]

This is not the right place for me.

[Oprah Winfrey]

This is not the right place for me. We need to take a quick break. Adam writes about the remarkable man who changed the face of chess while inspiring young men along the way. We'll meet him next this episode of.

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[Oprah Winfrey]

A warm welcome back to the Oprah Podcast. I'm with organizational psychologist and best selling author Adam Grant. We're talking about his latest book, Hidden Potential. So you share a story in the prologue that you call 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. Why?

[Adam Grant]

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

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Adam Grant]

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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Right.

[Adam Grant]

They don't have the world class teachers. They don't have the assessment when they're kindergartners and first graders trying to identify the most talented players and then put them in special chess training at the chess equivalent of the Olympic Training Center. 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 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. 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. And he taught them completely upside down. He broke all the rules of how you build a great chess team. And I think it tells us something very powerful about how we all learn.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And he wrote a book called Move by Move. Yes, Great book.

[Adam Grant]

About decision making.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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?

[Maurice Ashley]

Well, first of all, it's an honor to be with two of my most inspiring people in the world. Adam is such an amazing person. And Adam, your book is fantastic. And Oprah, I've been waiting 26 years.

[Adam Grant]

For this interview, so.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Well, you should call me. For goodness sakes. For goodness sakes, Maurice.

[Maurice Ashley]

What's the moment for me?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Oh, my gosh.

[Adam Grant]

Why didn't you tell me, Maurice?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Maurice, you should have told him. He would have listened. This would have happened much sooner.

[Maurice Ashley]

I didn't know he had that kind of pull.

[Adam Grant]

Are you kidding? I've even emulated your hairstyle. Come on, Maurice.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. You didn't know he had all that hidden potential. That's the thing. Yes.

[Maurice Ashley]

Well, 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. 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 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 after puzzles and trying to solve crossword puzzles or Sudoku or you name it, chess just became that thing that I could never solve. I became enraptured by it.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I read that, Maurice, that you had to learn the concept of to become be. What does that mean to you?

[Maurice Ashley]

Well, that was a big lesson I learned later in my journey when a Grandmaster, his name is Alexander Shabalov, 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.

[Adam Grant]

Wow.

[Maurice Ashley]

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 back in 1999, you're already a Grandmaster. You just have to make the moves because you build those qualities already.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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

[Maurice Ashley]

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, respecting the character building qualities that you get along the way. And big lessons like listening to your opponent, 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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.

[Maurice Ashley]

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 was actually someone who came to me and said, you know, I think you'll make a great teacher. And I wasn't sure on that, but 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 along 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 are a part of contributing to the magic of them becoming better people.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much, Maurice. We finally met. It happened. It happened because it happened. And this was the right time.

[Maurice Ashley]

It's a pleasure.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. 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?

[Adam Grant]

I think the basic challenge that most people run into is they judge potential based on ability instead of motivation. So they look at your starting skill level and they think, okay, that's the main driver of where you're gonna go. But we know from extensive evidence that's not true. I love this study that Benjamin Bloom did looking at world class 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 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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 ripe. Woo, woo, woo. I hear every teacher in your school system just read Hidden Potential. Is that correct?

[Molly]

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. 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Did you know this is going on?

[Molly]

And after all the teachers read the book over the summer, we reflected how we can truly unlock potential using Adam's work. And, 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. 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, 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 social searching for perfection.

[Oprah Winfrey]

These are all things Adam was talking about in Hidden Potential. I just wanted to share with those who haven't read it yet.

[Adam Grant]

Molly knows this book better than I do.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I know you're laying it out for us. Do you have a question for Adam? You have them right here.

[Molly]

Yes. Well, Adam, we also, because our teachers love the book so much, I also received a question 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 up 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?

[Oprah Winfrey]

That's a great question.

[Adam Grant]

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. So I look forward to learning more about what you've been up to. I think to answer your question, I think if I had to pick a top 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 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 nurture empathy and those pro social skills that we were talking about, 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've become a pretty big fan of looping as a practice where kids get to take a teacher with them from one grade to another. I think the research is clear across multiple countries that that allows teachers to not just specialize in their subjects, but actually specialize in their students. And there's a real relationship benefit of that. And I don't think it's for every class or every teacher, but I think it's something we ought to do more of.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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 the book allowed you to see differently?

[Molly]

I think we aligned with his work so much because we always believe that all kiddos have potential and. 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

All the kiddos do.

[Molly]

All the kiddos. It's also our job as a 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 each other, building prototypes, getting feedback on their prototype. 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.

[Adam Grant]

Well, 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 gonna. I'm not gonna just accept everything that's fed to me. I'm gonna go and question it and try to evolve my own knowledge.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Wow, Molly, thank you for sharing that. 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.

[Molly]

Thank you both.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Thanks, Molly.

[Adam Grant]

Quite an honor.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Time for a quick break. If you're learning as much as I am during this conversation, I invite you to share it with a friend or loved one. It may shift their mindset about what it means to reach their full potential. We're coming right back. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to my conversation with one of the foremost thought leaders on finding meaning, motivation, and personal growth, the New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Potential, Adam Grant. We've got one more person joining us on Zoom. Frankie zooming in from her dorm room in Illinois. Very nice. Hello. Such a clean dorm room. It looks like senior graduating. Oh, you cleaned. I know. You cleaned up for us. You cleaned up for us. I can see that, Frankie.

[Frankie]

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

[Adam Grant]

Are you gonna be?

[Oprah Winfrey]

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

[Frankie]

Okay, so, Adam, I am graduating in May of 2026. 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 discussing imposter syndrome. I actually recently did an internship with a place called Xeno Group, and I was on the marketing team and I felt like I had imposter 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, 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. 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?

[Oprah Winfrey]

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 imposter 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. But look, he wrote the book. I'll let him tell you.

[Adam Grant]

No, I think, I think that's a great start. I think 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 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. No, you don't. 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 the first time I met Sarah Blakely.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Adam Grant]

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

[Oprah Winfrey]

Mm, good.

[Adam Grant]

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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And do you have that, Frankie?

[Frankie]

I do. I like to think I'm a very confident person. I think it's just sometimes difficult for me to tap into that. I try to speak it into existence. I'm big in manifesting, so I. I do believe that about myself. Yes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay. Well, I think you need to go for it, girl.

[Frankie]

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

[Oprah Winfrey]

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

[Frankie]

Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Thank you.

[Frankie]

Well, thank you guys so much.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Oh, thank you. And thanks for presenting such a clean room.

[Adam Grant]

Of course.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Of course.

[Frankie]

Only for you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay. Thanks again for joining the Oprah podcast. Do you struggle with perfectionism? I hear that's something impacting a lot of women these days. Stay with us. Hey, there. Welcome back. I hope y' all will pick up a copy of Adam's book, Hidden Potential. It will help you see the potential within yourself. And if you know someone who needs to unlock their own hidden potential, send them the link to this episode. 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 for managing the need to be perfect?

[Adam Grant]

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 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. 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 guess, Oprah, from my diving days, 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 9 from the different judges I've asked to read it. And I know that if I get nines, it's good enough. Yeah, there's 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. It's just above. I want to make sure I don't get canceled. So maybe for a six and a half. And 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?

[Oprah Winfrey]

And does that change depending on where you are?

[Adam Grant]

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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That's right.

[Adam Grant]

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 because I felt like with everything I achieved, 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. 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 three and five 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 onto something when you said you thought about making yourself proud Yes. I want to make my younger self proud.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. I feel like there's not enough attention paid. And you do talk about it a lot in Hidden potential, but there's not enough attention paid to the distance we've traveled. 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 gotta get to the top. I gotta 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 farther, 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 our lives, too. I say that to my girls all the time, who are always, like, anxious about what the future's gonna 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.

[Adam Grant]

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?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Oh, I think about it all the time. I literally have gone from Mississippi, rural Mississippi, to Montecito. So I, you know, I look in my own backyard every day, and I am in awe, in amazement in 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?

[Adam Grant]

And what. What then keeps you motivated to say, okay, but there is another mountain I want to climb.

[Oprah Winfrey]

What keeps me motivated is because. Okay, so now you're interviewing me. So what keeps me motivated. Of course you are. 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. Cause that is 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 of other people.

[Adam Grant]

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

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, I've always been a teacher 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?

[Adam Grant]

I didn't know. I hoped. 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 trying to write the book.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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 Oprah Podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen I'll see you next week. Thanks, everybody. Sa.