Top 35 Adam Grant Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “The most meaningful way to succeed is to help others succeed.”

— Adam Grant

Featured in: Helping Others Quotes

2. “Focus attention and energy on making a difference in the lives of others, and success might follow as a by-product.”

— Adam Grant

3. “If we create networks with the sole intention of getting something, we won’t succeed. We can’t pursue the benefits of networks; the benefits ensue from investments in meaningful activities and relationships.”

— Adam Grant

4. “Excellence is the product of high aspirations and low ego.”

— Adam Grant

5. “Being a giver is not good for a 100-yard dash, but it’s valuable in a marathon.”

— Adam Grant

6. “Every time we interact with another person at work, we have a choice to make: do we try to claim as much value as we can, or contribute value without worrying about what we receive in return?”

— Adam Grant

7. “People tend to have one of three ‘styles’ of interaction. There are takers, who are always trying to serve themselves; matchers, who are always trying to get equal benefit for themselves and others; and givers, who are always trying to help people.”

— Adam Grant

8. “The more I help out, the more successful I become. But I measure success in what it has done for the people around me. That is the real accolade.”

— Adam Grant

9. “Original thinkers doubt the default.”

— Adam Grant

10. “Givers reject the notion that interdependence is weak. Givers are more likely to see interdependence as a source of strength, a way to harness the skills of multiple people for a greater good.”

— Adam Grant

11. “If we communicate the vision behind our ideas, the purpose guiding our products, people will flock to us.”

— Adam Grant

12. “Conviction in our ideas is dangerous not only because it leaves us vulnerable to false positives, but also because it stops us from generating the requisite variety to reach our creative potential.”

— Adam Grant

13. “Dissenting opinions are useful even when they’re wrong. So instead of speaking to highly agreeable audiences, target suggestions to people with a history of originality.”

— Adam Grant

14. “Negative relationships are unpleasant but predictable.”

— Adam Grant

15. “Dissenting opinions are useful, even when they are wrong.”

— Adam Grant

16. “When you put off a task, you buy yourself time to engage in divergent thinking rather than foreclosing on one particular idea...”

— Adam Grant

17. “When you’re dealing with an ambivalent relationship, you’re constantly on guard, grappling with questions of trust.”

— Adam Grant

18. “Passionate people don’t wear their passion on their sleeves; they have it in their hearts.”

— Adam Grant

19. “And they act in the face of risk, because their fear of not succeeding exceeds their fear of failing.”

— Adam Grant

20. “Before women gained the right to vote in America, many “had never before considered their degraded status as anything but natural,” historian Jean Baker observes. As the suffrage movement gained momentum, “a growing number of women were beginning to see that custom, religious precept, and law were in fact man-made and therefore reversible.”

— Adam Grant

21. “Enemies make better allies than frenemies.”

— Adam Grant

22. “Rather than looking outward in an attempt to predict the outcome, you turn inward to your identity. You base the decision on who you are – or who you want to be.”

— Adam Grant

23. “Originality brings more bumps in the road, yet it leaves us with more happiness and a greater sense of meaning.”

— Adam Grant

24. “Good guys are most likely to finish last, but also most likely to finish first.”

— Adam Grant

25. “As Chris Granger, executive vice president at the NBA, explains, “Talented people are attracted to those who care about them. When you help someone get promoted out of your team, it’s a short-term loss, but it’s a clear long-term gain. It’s easier to attract people, because word gets around that your philosophy is to help people.”

— Adam Grant

26. “If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” Instead, creators ought to build a car and see if customers will drive it.”

— Adam Grant

27. “Having a sense of security in one realm gives us the freedom to be original in another.”

— Adam Grant

28. “Chip Conley, the renowned entrepreneur who founded Joie de Vivre Hotels, explains, “Being a giver is not good for a 100-yard dash, but it’s valuable in a marathon.”

— Adam Grant

29. “Entrepreneurs who kept their day jobs had 33 percent lower odds of failure than those who quit.”

— Adam Grant

30. “After all, the purpose of learning isn’t to affirm our beliefs; it’s to evolve our beliefs.”

— Adam Grant

31. “Being a scientist is not just a profession. It’s a frame of mind... Scientific tools are not reserved for people in white coats and beakers. Hypotheses have as much place in our lives as they do in the lab. Experiments can inform our daily decisions.”

— Adam Grant

32. “We often favor feeling right, over being right.”

— Adam Grant

33. “The personality trait most associated with an interest in the arts is called openness, the tendency to seek out novelty in intellectual, aesthetic, and emotional pursuits.”

— Adam Grant

34. “To overcome fear, why does getting excited work better than trying to calm yourself down? Fear is an intense emotion. You can feel your heart pumping and your blood coursing. In that state, trying to relax is like slamming on the brakes when a car is going 80 miles per hour. The vehicle still has momentum. Rather than trying to suppress a strong emotion, it’s easier to convert it into a different emotion – one that’s equally intense, but propels is to step on the gas.”

— Adam Grant

35. “There’s a fine line between heroic persistence and foolish stubbornness. Sometimes the best kind of grit is gritting our teeth and turning around.”

— Adam Grant

36. “Psychologists discovered that there are two routes to achievement: conformity and originality. Conformity means following the crowd down conventional paths and maintaining the status quo. Originality is taking the road less traveled, championing a set of novel ideas that go against the grain but ultimately make things better.”

— Adam Grant

37. “Bragging about yourself violates norms of modesty and politeness – and if you were really competent, your work would speak for itself.”

— Adam Grant

38. “Reasoning does create a paradox: it leads both to more rule following and more rebelliousness. By explaining moral principles, parents encourage their children to comply voluntarily with rules that align with important values and to question rules that don’t. Good explanations enable children to develop a code of ethics that often coincides with societal expectations; when they don’t square up, children rely on the internal compass of values rather than the external compass of rules.”

— Adam Grant

39. “Overall, on average, happier people earn more money, get higher performance ratings, make better decisions, negotiate sweeter deals, and contribute more to their organizations. Happiness alone accounts for about 10 percent of the variation between employees and job performance.”

— Adam Grant