Be a Proactive Learner

Hidden Potential by Adam Grant

Chapter 2: Human Sponges

Watch the replay here. If you're not a member of the Superabound Collective, join free here:

Main points:

• These are Skills of Character, which means they can be developed.
• For learning to have real impact, it needs to be connected to something that matters deeply. What is that for you?
• The most effective approach to learning is being proactive and growth-driven, not reactive and ego-driven
• You can tell which one you're being based on your feelings. What does ego-driven feel like for you? Growth-driven?
• The best feedback comes from people who have care, credibility, and familiarity with you. Everything else should be tempered to some degree with the Personal Filter of your Tending Triad 

Transcript:

We're going to talk about hidden potential, hidden potential. What that means is you accessing everything that you have to give to the world. We like to call it living a life the universe is dreaming for you. Adam Grant wrote a beautiful book about it. We have it right here, show you the book. And so the promise is that this is the non boring leadership book club, I can get a little boring, Aaron tells me my wife, she often gives me this feedback, it's a little painful, but she's always only doing it for the, for the highest good, right? She's trying to help me reach my full potential. So I'm going to do my best. The thing that I believe makes any topic non boring, is its application to your life and your situation. So for today, chapter two is all about becoming a human sponge learning as much as possible. But for that to be really exciting. I want to know, what matters to you that you want to be learning more for? Not just filling your head with information, but actually gaining skills that you can bring to whatever it is that's really important to you.

My friend Hansen shared about his running club. So is it for your physical fitness and your fitness lanterns, anything that you want to do in the world around that? Is it your business, your leadership, your team? Is it something related to relationships, how you want to show up as a partner, as a parent, as a friend, any of these things can be the area that unlocks the magic for this topic for you. And really, for me that it is what it's all about is having your reason to do this, because it's uncomfortable. It's actually uncomfortable to grow. We have two little kids that are constantly asking me to squish their legs, squishing my legs, in a little bones just growing and stretching. It's not a fun experience, right? Little babies or teeth popping out. Like that's kind of the physical growth of children. But even as adults, it can be uncomfortable, to become someone new to grow in our capacities, especially when it's real, and you're doing things differently. So we're going to dive in, but as we do I want you to write down. Why does it matter to you to learn more, to be more effective to behave differently based on what you're learning to be a human sponge. With that in mind, let's dive in. So this is within the section. So we're this is chapter two of Adam grants book. It's within the section of skills of character. And I talked about this last week, but I love this framing. Because when it is a skill of character, it's something that you can actually develop, we all know that we can increase our skills. But oftentimes, when we think about character, we think about something that is fixed. Or like someone so has a outstanding character or so and so as a total degenerate, you know, we kind of box people. And we do that to ourselves. If you really think about how you can build your own character, sometimes, you know, I speak for myself, I kind of come up with a blank, like, I don't know, work harder. But when you really think about it, there are aspects of character that can be developed. Which means there are ways to actually develop them, there are things you can do to build these skills. And so that's what we're talking about today. If you want to be a better learner, a more open learner, a more proactive learner as we're going to dive into in this conversation. Those are practices that you can take on, those are things you can do. So let's talk about what those are. The first skill in becoming what grant calls a human sponge. Let's see how would we frame that in Superabound terms? I don't know I kind of like human sponge. Aaron didn't get an errand. It wasn't really into it though. When I when I ran it past my co founder, business partner and wife Just like, not everyone would know what a human sponge is fair enough. And so she was thinking of it as a connected, open outgoing learner. I think that's pretty cool. The first skill that really blew me away in the way that he frames it here is to be proactive, and to be growth driven. Now, when I think about learning, I think my style does tend to be more reactive. I'm open to things, if people share them with me, right? If someone says, Hey, Steve, I want you to know, if you, I keep mentioning Erin, she's my main, you know, person in work these days. But if she brings something up, if she's like, Hey, let's talk about the tone of this email, or, you know, what, you know, offering me feedback on a meeting we had or anything like that. I'm open to it, right? I'm like, Okay, I'm ready. Hit me. How can I improve the tone? How can I have a more effective meeting, whatever it is. But in preparation for today, I actually applied some of the advice from from the book, which was to actually seek advice from people that you respect. Because most people are not going to just love you some insight, they're not just going to throw feedback your way, unless they're a business partner. And their success depends on your growth. For the most part, if we want to grow, we have to seek it out. And it can be really uncomfortable. In my case, as I was putting together the post, asking people for advice, in this case, it was to build this book club and you know, reach more people have it be more engaged and have a bigger impact with it. I felt vulnerable. I felt like I was asking for too much. I was thinking, what if these people are annoyed by me asking for their advice? And, you know, I was a little hesitant to do it, it's easier to just put something out there. And, hey, if someone has some feedback, you know, I'm sure they'll give it to me. But to actually say, What do you think I would love your advice, opened me up in positive and also kind of uncomfortable ways. Not that uncomfortable is not positive. But my experience was one of greater connection, and also one of greater vulnerability. I was admitting that I didn't know everything about how to build the booklet in this instance. So that is, step one is to be proactive instead of being reactive. Now, I'm curious, where do you have your center of gravity? Are you more often proactive in the way where if there's something you want to improve that you will seek out a coach, a mentor, you will ask for advice, you will even reach out to people that you think are beyond your level, right folks who are big successes, big names in your space, and actively asked for their input advice and feedback? Or do you kind of try to do it on your own, maybe reading a book here or there, but fundamentally, waiting, waiting for response? And I would love to see that in the comments, feel free to share any of your thoughts there. I'm not sure I'm actually getting my comments here on LinkedIn. So my apologies if I can't see you. But really, in the end, it is for you to have your own insights into how you learn so that you can grow as a learner. So first is proactive versus reactive. And the second that really struck me is are you ego driven or growth driven? Now we're all going to want to say growth driven. Nobody listening to this, you're gonna say, Oh, me, I'm all about protecting myself image, man, come on, of course. No one would admit to that. But it's a big thing not to actually be in it to protect yourself image, you know, it's a big deal. And so, you know, he kind of put puts it out there in the book. You should be growth driven, not ego driven. And everyone says, Yes, of course.

But how do you actually do that? How do you know? When you are defending yourself and you're not letting things in and you kind of want to make excuses or or, you know, basically protect the idea that you're fine. Thank you very much. Versus, hey, there's lots of room to grow. How can I, you know, give me give me I want, I want more, I want the feedback. So my question for you is, how do you know when you're being ego driven versus growth driven. And for me that telltale sign is in how I feel, it's in the feeling in my body. ego driven, there is a feeling of resistance. There's a feeling of almost antagonism, it's like, I'm gearing up for a fight. And what comes out is defense, defending what I wrote, defending my ideas, defending my track record, or whatever it is, it feels like creating a wall around my heart, a wall around my sense of effectiveness of agency of, you know, being a good soldier getting it done. And it looks like making excuses being defensive. Even when I even when I think I'm being open, right, like, I'll ask for feedback. And then I'll, you know, shuffle it down excuses Avenue. The feeling when I'm growth driven, is much more. It's a crumbly, it's crumbly. There's space, there's porousness, when I'm engaged with someone, and I'm getting feedback, that is that where I'm open to it, where I'm growth driven. So maybe just take a moment to write down what your feeling is, when you are more defensive, more ego driven versus more growth driven. Because once you can tap into that feeling, then you can make a shift in the moment, right, if you find yourself being defensive, you can actually just, you know, we have a process for it with our coaching, we call it healing, static, that static is kind of that fuzzy space, that prevents you from being locked into your vision. And you can kind of free yourself kind of clear that that foggy static space with a single breath. It can happen that quickly. Right. And so you know, a quick process to go through that would be you know, you take a breath. And you honor so heal is actually an acronym, you honor everything about your experience, even if you're feeling angry, and resistant and defensive. Honor that whole thing, you're not messing it up. You're not a broken leader, business owner or human being, you honor that response. And as you breathe, kind of experience, what it's like in your body, you don't try to push it away, or pretend it's not there actually experience it, make space for it. And as you do that, ask gently. And curiously, it's not a word curiously, you know, with curiosity. What is that feeling telling you? What is the wisdom? What I find from that, so then the L in heal is you listen, you listen to that response, it can happen in a single breath. What I often find find is that, that defensiveness just wants me to be accepted. It wants me to be excellent. Right? So it's looking to be part of the tribe, part of the community. And it wants me to be very effective, have a big impact of my life. And that really makes room for that experience to be there, while simultaneously intentionally shifting to something that is going to allow that feedback to really create connections both within me and with the person that is providing it. So that is my thought on skill number one of being proactive and growth driven. I would love to hear how that resonates for you, how you approach it. What makes that something that you can actually bring it into your day to day. So I would suggest the taking a breath healing that static. Having a practice where you proactively seek out Advice. Love. Grant, what's that? It's like you're not, you're not looking for help, you're not looking for feedback. You want advice? How can you make it better? Right? Because especially when you're the boss, most of the time, the feedback you're gonna get is great boss. Love it super duper. It's a rare colleague who can tell it to you straight. at Shopify, we said all the time, feedback is a gift. And it was sometimes used as a euphemism for like, here's, here's a feedback punch in the face, you know, you're welcome. So, you know, always do your best to, to have it wrapped with humanity. And with real care, but it is a gift. It's rare that someone will tell you how they really feel or think about about something that you're doing or areas that you could improve. So it is valuable, it is a gift. And the way to get more of it, I really love what he says, you know, ask for advice on how things could improve, rather than feedback on your performance or anything that someone might shy away from, for fear of upsetting the power dynamic, because that's always going to be there. Okay. So the second point that really stood out for me with this chapter is getting great guidance on not only are you asking for feedback, you're asking for input, but you're also filtering it based on who really has, let's say, the right to get into your mind. I think this is a problem for so many people, especially on social media, where you just look at 1000 comments. I've never had 1000 comments on anything I've created yet. But you know, if someone is kind of higher up and more influential, or one of the things goes viral, there could be a bunch of people weighing in, on their thought, on their career on any manner of things, all kinds of things. And so many people, let every single one of those pieces of feedback pieces of advice, get right into their brain, right into their heart. And, in in our work, this is part of the attending triad, the attending triad four, tending your inner flame, so that you can achieve, you can light your lanterns without burning out. And this part of the tending triad we call the personal filter, it's how you are creating boundaries between yourself and the world to manage your energy to allow in the energy that you want and to keep at bay the energy that you don't. And so the kind of framework that grant shares in the book, is the Venn diagram, the overlap of the three areas of does somebody care about you? Are they credible? For what you're asking advice with? Do they know that space and know what they're talking about? And Are they familiar with you and your situation? If there's an overlap there between all three, then that's something to let in. Because they care about you. They actually it is they're bringing their humanity, they're bringing the relationship to the feedback. Because they know that space, and they're credible. It's not just your your mother or father saying you should you know, you should publish your book this way. Or you should call the title that, yes, they care about you. But do they know that space that you're asking about? Maybe. But if they don't, you know, they're missing that sweet spot of the Venn diagram. So credibility, they have track record, they have authority to speak in that space. And then familiarity. This is a great point where if someone is kind of offering you general advice, it might not even be all that specific, or it might not be that relevant to your situation. So their willingness to spend time getting to know you getting to know what it is that you're specifically asking about is a big part of what makes their feedback really valuable. That you can kind of let it through that personal filter in a big way. It's also one of the values of coaching, not to turn this into a pitch or anything but like that's what happens as you work with a coach over time is is you know, they become part of your world. And if there's care and there's credibility and that familiarity there, then it becomes

not just like, Okay, I understand your business, but it's, I get what it is that you want, how you want your life to look, right because if somebody you know that maybe they're even really familiar with your business, but if they Don't know what kind of a life you want to create, what kind of a team you want to have, what your lanterns for your business are, what your vision is, then their advice on how to grow or how to reach that next milestone, might not actually even line up with what you want for your life. So that's why that familiarity piece is so important. Because there's lots of lots of advice out there that can end you up in a situation that you don't want. You might reach your next revenue milestone, but as we say, you know, what, what use is having a lot of money if you're alone and exhausted, when when it comes, right. The things that make life worth living are your relationships, your health, your well being along the path. So that's where the familiarity comes in, and what makes it advice or feedback that kind of passes that personal filter test. So I hope that's helpful for you. For me, the takeaway really is putting myself out there asked for advice on things that I want to develop and grow and to be proactive kind of pay attention to that feeling experience when I'm getting the feedback that can help me grow. Alright, well, thanks again for joining either live on LinkedIn or zoom or in the in the replay. And I will see you next week. For chapter three, we might start folding a few more chapters in here with Adam grants book, hidden potential. I hope this helps you activate your potential to help you live the life the universe is dreaming for you, and like your next lantern. Thanks again. Take care