Adam Grant: Practice taming your fear
Meditative Story
WaitWhat
4.6 • 3.2K Ratings
🗓️ 12 September 2023
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
"Are you going to do this? Ever?" Standing at the edge of the highest diving board at the aquatic center, a young Adam Grant tries and tries, and tries to leap off. But he can't face down his fear — not so much of falling as losing control. So there he stands at the end of the board, paralyzed. In this story, Adam Grant, now a famed organizational psychologist, shares how a wise diving coach helped him outsmart fear — and take the leap.
Visit Adam’s website: https://adamgrant.net/
Follow Adam on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adamgrant
Discover more about Adam's latest book, Hidden Potential: https://adamgrant.net/book/hidden-potential/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi there, it's Rohan. We know many of you listen to meditative story to find joy and a sense of |
| 0:07.1 | connection. So, if you're curious to know more about how and why people connect, I have another |
| 0:14.8 | podcast for you to listen to. It's called Hidden Brain, and each episode combines science and |
| 0:21.6 | storytelling to give you new insights into human behaviour. Whether you're stuck in a creative rut, |
| 0:28.7 | miscommunicating with a friend, or wondering how to build stronger teams at work, Hidden Brain |
| 0:35.4 | can help. On each episode, host Shankar Vedantam talks with behavioural specialists to help you |
| 0:42.8 | understand yourself and the world around you. You can check out Hidden Brain wherever you get your |
| 0:50.0 | podcasts. My focus practice, hour after hour, day after day gives me a sense of clarity and purpose. |
| 1:09.8 | I'm trying to learn a front one and a half. So, a flip and a dive, but I'm afraid to keep |
| 1:16.8 | rotating past the flip. I'm not sure what I think is going to happen, but I'm so terrified |
| 1:22.4 | that I only do a front one and a quarter and just belly flop. Try after try the whole summer. |
| 1:30.9 | I feel like I'm hanging on a little bit longer each time, but the tapes show me I'm not. |
| 1:37.9 | I think I'm learning to let go of control, but I'm still gripping it just as tightly. |
| 1:42.8 | I think I'm confronting my fear, but I'm actually powerless against it. |
| 1:56.1 | Adam Grant is a professor of Organizational Psychology at Wharton, a treasured TED speaker |
| 2:02.6 | at the multiple New York Times bestselling author. In his book, Think Again, Adam weaves together |
| 2:10.3 | the research and storytelling to help us take curious enough about the world to actually change it. |
| 2:18.0 | In today's meditative story, Adam takes us to the end of a springboard, staring down at the |
| 2:24.3 | water below a long line of impatient divers behind him. He discovers that you don't outgrow fear, |
| 2:31.8 | you outsmart it. In this series we combine immersive first person stories, |
| 2:39.3 | breath-taking music and mindfulness pumps so that we may see our lives reflected back to us |
| 2:46.0 | in other people's stories and that can lead to improvements in our own inner lives. |
... |
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