book

Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

  • Writen by Adam Grant
  • Publisher Penguin UK
  • ISBN 9780753560051
  • Publication Date 2023

We live in a world that's obsessed with talent. We celebrate gifted students in school, natural athletes in sports, and child prodigies in music. But admiring people who start out with innate advantages leads us to overlook the distance we ourselves can travel. We underestimate the range of skills that we can learn and how good we can become. We can all improve at improving. And when opportunity doesn't knock, there are ways to build a door.

Hidden Potential offers a new framework for raising aspirations and exceeding expectations. Adam Grant weaves together groundbreaking evidence, surprising insights, and vivid storytelling that takes us from the classroom to the boardroom, the playground to the Olympics, and underground to outer space. He shows that progress depends less on how hard you work than how well you learn. Growth is not about the genius you possess-it's about the character you develop. Grant explores how to build the character skills and motivational structures to realize our own potential, and how to design systems that create opportunities for those who have been underrated and overlooked.

Many writers have chronicled the habits of superstars who accomplish great things. This book reveals how anyone can rise to achieve greater things. The true measure of your potential is not the height of the peak you've reached, but how far you've climbed to get there.

Suggested Books


Bill Gates is one of the most transformative figures of our age. In Source Code he takes us back to his beginnings.

He describes with candour his childhood in Seattle, the centrality of family – his close relationship with his card-playing grandmother and his demanding but caring parents – his struggles to fit in, his rebelliousness, his first deep friendships and the impact of losing his closest friend.

We see Gates’s extraordinary mind developing, the restless teenager who discovered a love of coding and computing at the dawn of a new era and felt that ‘by applying my brain, I could solve even the world’s most complex mysteries’. We see the earliest signs of his phenomenal business acumen, which led him to drop out of Harvard at the age of 20 to devote all his energies to Microsoft, the company he started with his childhood friend Paul Allen. He writes about his first involvement with three Steves – Jobs, Wozniak and Ballmer – who would play a crucial role in so much that followed.

The book ends in the late 1970s when Microsoft, still with only a dozen employees, signed its first deal with Apple. The deals would go on and Microsoft would grow unimaginably. Yet Gates never forgot his mother’s reminder that he was merely a steward of any wealth that he gained. This warm and inspiring book, Bill Gates’ origin story, allows readers to understand his energy and ambition – and to see how he sets himself in the world.

An encyclopedic collection of children's questions answered by experts

Children ask the best questions – and this book has the answers!

This timeless encyclopedia covers children's favourite topics, all in a friendly, easy-to-read Q&A format, perfect to dip into and browse. If your child is always asking questions, from "how do aeroplanes fly?" to "why do tigers have stripes?" and "what's inside a black hole?", and everything in between, this is the book for them. Shaped by children's interests and their insatiable curiosity, this is a book that children will read again and again.

Alongside the children's questions and the expert answers are beautiful illustrations, photographs, and diagrams to bring every topic to life in rich detail and with perfect clarity. 1,000 Curious Questions is essential reading to encourage curious kids to keep questioning the world around them.

From bloodthirsty battles and rebellious revolutions, to curious coincidences and unfortunate accidents - 100 Events That Made History has it all!

Get ready for a historical rollercoaster ride as 100 Events That Made History brings the major moments of the past to life in an unforgettable way. Get the lowdown on events that have changed the course of history and shaped the modern world. Find out why Ivan became so terrible, why a sandwich was fatal for Archduke Ferdinand and more of history's key moments.

Incredible photography and colourful illustrations make 100 Events That Made History a perfect project helper for young history lovers.

TV's Paul Hollywood conveys his love of bread-making in this collection of fantastic recipes.

He reveals all the simple techniques you need to make this staple food and shows you that baking bread is far easier than you could possibly have imagined. 100 Great Breads features a wide range of recipes, from a basic brown and white loaf to savoury and sweet, Mediterranean, traditional and ancient breads.