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Bridgitte Rodguez's avatar

I’ve just added this book to my TBR list! Thanks for the interview. Some of the points were reminding me of my current audiobook read, Visual Thinking by Temple Grandin. She’s basically making the argument, that how and what we teach in schools is geared to one type of learning, and one type of personality and one type of goal. That typically being academic. And especially for folks with disabilities or learning differences, they get written off, early on, in the traditional school sense. But most great thinkers, inventors, artists, etc. were not great at traditional school. They succeeded because others around them-- mostly their families believed in them-- they were able to try different things, gain exposure to different things, and figure out what worked for them to become successful. It kind of requires us reexamining what we think a successful career or life looks like. Realizing that what works for some is not what will work for all.

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David Merritt's avatar

I doubt anyone will see this comment months after the fact, but I only just now got around to reading this one. Adam's sentence "But potential is not about where you start — it’s a matter of how far you’ll travel" kinda blew me away. This describes my life experience--personally and professionally. Professionally, I did a full military career as an officer, where half the point of it is to change jobs frequently to acquire a breadth of experience and skills. I performed well at every job, but I never quite felt I had "command" over the duties...like I knew exactly what to do in every situation, and why (if that's even possible). But in my last job in the military and my first job outside the military, I was surprised at how little surprised me. It seemed I had solved every problem at least once before, and this has helped me bring some strong, valuable convictions to what I'm doing (arguably, good strategic vision comes from this place of conviction). This is especially true in my current role in the private sector: my broad experience feels like a superpower. Basically, my prior experiences were investments, and those investments grew over time until the magic of compound interest and time have produced really high ROI I was not expecting. I'm glad my career ceiling was not permanently set when I was younger. Or rather, I'm glad that potential = how far I'll go, not where I started.

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