Book giveaway

The launch of HIDDEN POTENTIAL is right around the corner. As a token of my gratitude to you as loyal Granted readers, I’m giving away 100 copies of the book. To enter, leave a question about the book or about potential here:

You’re also welcome to enter the additional giveaways on social media tomorrow, but this one is just for the Granted community!

In the past month, over 38,000 of you have taken the Hidden Potential quiz. It’s an assessment of three key character skills that propel us to greater heights: being a sponge (proactively absorbing information to grow), a discomfort seeker (embracing opportunities to stretch beyond your strengths), and an imperfectionist (accepting the right flaws).

Many of you have asked how your scores compare to other people’s—and how they break down between groups. With the giant caveat that this isn’t a representative sample…

Overall: The most common character strength is being a sponge.

The area where the most people struggle is being an imperfectionist (lowest score for 65% of participants, including yours truly… apparently writing a whole chapter on it hasn’t cured me of perfectionism).

Gender: Statistically, men are most likely to be discomfort seekers, women are most inclined to be sponges, and non-binary individuals are most oriented toward accepting imperfections.

Age: Teenagers scored highest in discomfort-seeking, people in their 30s and 80s had the highest imperfectionist tendencies, and people in their 50s, 60s, and 70s were the most enthusiastic sponges.

Work and country: We know that careers and cultures vary in the strengths they attract, socialize, and develop. Below are the professions and places with the highest average scores on each character skill.

You might be surprised that some of the most dedicated imperfectionists are architects. This is the one career finding that I anticipated—it’s unpacked in chapter 3 of the book.

On a somber note: I’ve been horrified by the terrorist attacks and human rights violations of the past week—and by some of the responses. I think political scientist Dov Waxman put it best: “To the people celebrating the mass murder of Israeli civilians, you have lost your humanity. To the people enthusiastically calling for Israel to decimate Gaza, densely populated with 2 million Palestinian civilians, you have lost your humanity.”

On a personal level, this post by the founder of Tangle—a nonpartisan newsletter about politics—offers the historical nuance and human compassion that so many have missed: https://x.com/Ike_Saul/status/1711780282725011520?s=20

I’ve heard from countless people who are struggling with what (and whether) to post. Don’t mistake their silence for apathy. It’s often a sign of empathic distress—hurting for others while feeling unable to help. If you're overwhelmed by a heavy heart and exhausted by a feed filled with hate, you are not alone.

In solidarity,

Adam