How to Unlock Your Potential, Motivation & Unique Abilities | Dr. Adam Grant

(instrumental music) Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science, and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Adam Grant. Adam Grant is a professor of organizational psychology at the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania. He has authored five best-selling books, and most recently has authored a new book entitled Hidden Potential. He received his bachelor's degree from Harvard University, and his doctorate from the University of Michigan. Today we discuss peer-reviewed studies and tools based on the data from those studies that can enable people to meet their goals and overcome significant challenges. Including how to overcome procrastination, as well as how to see around or through blind spots, as well as how to overcome sticking points in motivation and creativity. We also discuss the research on, and practical tools related to the underpinnings of performance in any endeavor, including how to increase one's confidence, and how to have a persistent growth mindset. By the end of today's episode, it will be clear to you that Dr. Adam Grant has an absolutely spectacular depth and breadth of knowledge, and that knowledge is both practical, it is based on peer-reviewed research, and he conveys those tools with the utmost clarity and generosity. Indeed, by the end of today's episode, you will have more than a dozen new tools, never discussed before on the Huberman Lab Podcast, that you can apply in your academic endeavors, in athletic endeavors, in creative endeavors. In fact, in any area of life. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Eight Sleep. Eight Sleep makes smart mattress covers with cooling, heating, and sleep tracking capacity. I've spoken many times before on this podcast about the fact that getting a great night's sleep really is the foundation of mental health, physical health, and performance. One of the key things to getting a great night's sleep is to make sure that the temperature of your sleeping environment is correct. And that's because in order to fall and stay deeply asleep, your body temperature actually has to drop by about one to three degrees. And, in order to wake up feeling refreshed and energized, your body temperature actually has to increase by about one to three degrees. With Eight Sleep, you can program the temperature of your sleeping environment in the beginning, middle, and end of your night. It has a number of other features like tracking the amount of rapid eye movement and slow wave sleep that you get. Things that are essential to really dialing in the perfect night's sleep for you. I've been sleeping on an Eight Sleep mattress cover for well over two years now, and it has greatly improved my sleep. I fall asleep far more quickly, I wake up far less often in the middle of the night, and I wake up feeling far more refreshed than I ever did prior to using an Eight Sleep mattress cover. If you'd like to try Eight Sleep, go to eightsleep.com/huberman. Now through November 30th, as a special holiday discount, Eight Sleep is offering $500 off their bundles with a pod cover. Eight Sleep currently ships in the USA, Canada, the UK, select countries in the EU, and Australia. Again, that's eightsleep.com/huberman. Today's episode is also brought to us by Levels. Levels is a program that lets you see how different foods affect your health by giving you real-time feedback on your diet using a continuous glucose monitor. One of the most important factors in your immediate and long-term health is your blood sugar or blood glucose regulation. With Levels, you can see how different foods and food combinations, exercise, and sleep patterns impact your blood glucose levels. It's very easy to use. You just put the monitor on the back of your arm, and then you take your phone and you scan it over that monitor now and again, and it downloads the data about your blood sugar levels in the preceding hours. Using Levels has allowed me to learn a tremendous amount about what works best for me in terms of nutrition, exercise, work schedules, and sleep. So if you're interested in learning more about Levels and trying a continuous glucose monitor, you can go to levels.link/huberman. Levels has launched a new CGM sensor that is smaller and has even better tracking than the previous version. Right now, they're also offering an additional two free months of membership. Again, that's levels.link/huberman to try the new sensor and two free months of membership. Today's episode is also brought to us by Waking Up. Waking Up is a meditation app that includes hundreds of meditation programs, mindfulness trainings, yoga nidra sessions, and NSDR, or non-sleep deep rest protocols. I started using the Waking Up app a few years ago, because even though I've been doing regular meditation since my teens, and I started doing yoga nidra about a decade ago, my dad mentioned to me that he had found an app, turned out to be the Waking Up app, which could teach you meditations of different durations, and that had a lot of different types of meditations to place the brain and body into different states. And that he liked it very much. So I gave the Waking Up app a try, and I too found it to be extremely useful because sometimes I only have a few minutes to meditate. Other times I have longer to meditate. And indeed I love the fact that I can explore different types of meditation to bring about different levels of understanding about consciousness, but also to place my brain and body into lots of different kinds of states depending on which meditation I do. I also love that the Waking Up app has lots of different types of yoga nidra sessions. For those of you who don't know, yoga nidra is a process of lying very still but keeping an active mind. It's very different than most meditations, and there's excellent scientific data to show that yoga nidra and something similar to it called non-sleep deep rest, or NSDR, can greatly restore levels of cognitive and physical energy, even with just a short 10-minute session. If you'd like to try the Waking Up app, you can go to wakingup.com/huberman and access a free 30-day trial. Again, that's wakingup.com/huberman to access a free 30-day trial. And now for my discussion with Dr. Adam Grant. Adam, welcome.