I've noticed Shawn Anchor mentioned a lot when it comes to talking about happiness. He hit the nail on the head with this book! I can't remember what led me to this book, but I was I pleasantly surprised and the more I read the more I loved it. My word of the year is "swing". I wrote about it here. I was able to add a lot to my cache about the value of swing by reading this!
My notes are below the Goodreads summary.
Goodreads says:
“With cutting-edge research, penetrating insights, and practical examples, Shawn Achor describes a new conception of ‘success,’ and in doing so, reveals exciting new strategies we can use to meet our highest potential.”—Gretchen Rubin, bestselling author of The Happiness Project
“A vibrant book on how to bring out the best in others—and how they can bring out the best in us.”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the podcast WorkLife
In a world that thrives on competition and individual achievement, we’re measuring and pursuing potential incorrectly. Pursuing success in isolation—pushing others away as we push ourselves too hard—not only limits our potential but makes us more stressed and disconnected than ever.
Harvard-trained researcher Shawn Achor reveals a better approach. With exciting new research combining neuroscience and psychology with Big Data, Achor shows that our potential is not limited by what we alone can achieve. Instead, it is determined by how we complement, contribute to, and benefit from the abilities and achievements of people around us.
When we—as individuals, leaders, and parents—chase only individual achievement, we leave vast sources of potential untapped. But once we put “others” back into the equation, and work to make others better, we ignite a Virtuous Cycle of cascading successes that amplify our own.
The dramatic shifts in how we approach work today demand an equally dramatic shift in our approach to success. In Big Potential, Achor draws on cutting-edge original research as well as his work with nearly half of the Fortune 100 and with places like NASA, the NFL and the NBA, and offers a new path to thriving in the modern world.
Notes
p. 1 When dusk slowly crept upon a mangrove forest lining a river deep in a jungle in Southeast Asia, a biologist far from his home in Washington State looked out over the lush, alien landscape lining the snake-infested waters. While drifting slowly in his boat, Professor Hugh Smith surely heard the calls of the nocturnal creatures uncoiling from their dens or taking flight from their nests and beginning their nightly hunts. I can envision how the water must have shimmered under the light from the stars, unspoiled by the light pollution that existed in the remote cities. What happened next on that humid day in 1935 is part of recorded academic history. Smith looked up at one of the mangrove trees, and suddenly the entire canopy glowed as if a lightning bolt had show out from the tree instead of striking it. Then it all went dark, leaving a burned image on his vision....once his capacity for mental reasoning returned, he realized that the trees were not, in fact, glowing; rather they were covered with a critical number of bioluminiescent lightning bugs, all illuminating at the exact same time. Upon returning home, Dr Smith wrote up a journal article on his discovery of the synchronous lightning bugs. It seemed too good to be true, like something out of a storybook. I'm sadly unsurprised by the next part of the story. He was not believed. Biologists ridiculed his account, even calling it fabricated. Why would make fireflies glow in unison, which would only decrease their chances of distinguishing themselves to potential mates? Mathematicians were equally skeptical. How could order come from chaos in nature without a leader to direct it? And entomologists asked how million of fireflies could see enough other fireflies to create the exact same pattern, given the limited visibility i the mangrove forest. It seemed physically, mathematically, and biologically impossible.
Yet, it wasn't. And thanks to modern science, we know how and why. Turns out that this puzzling behavior actually serves an evolutionary purpose for the fireflies. As published in the prestigious journal Science, researchers Moiseff and Copeland found that when lightning bugs light up at randome times, the likelihood of a female responding to a male in the deep, dark recesses of a mangrove forest is 3 percent. But when the lightning bugs light up together, the likelihood of females responding is 82%! That's not a typo. The success rate increased by 79 percentage points when flashing as an interconnected community rather than as individuals.
The lightning bug researchers discovered than when fireflies were able to time their pulses with one another with astonishing accuracy (to the millisecond!), it allowed them to space themselves apart perfectly, thus eliminating the need to compete. ...Like the lightning bugs, once we learn to coordinate and collaborate with those around us, we all begin to shine brighter, both individually and as an ecosystem.
p. 23...almost every attribute of your potential - from intelligence ot creativity to leadership to personality and engagement - is interconnected with others. Thus, to truly thrive physically, emotionally, and spiritually, we need to change our pursuit of potential in the same way we need to change our pursuit of happiness. We need to stop trying to be faster alone, and start working to become stronger together.
p. 41 ...connecting with high-potential people dramatically increases your likelihood of high-potential outcomes. ...it turns out that not only do people around us powerfully shape the type of person we'll become, but that their influence begins to take root at a very young age. For example, they found that when three- or four-year-old children were surrounded by peers who were hard-working or social, they too would begin to work harder and be more social.
...Our finding, that personality traits are contagious among children, flies in the face of common assumptions that personality is ingrained and can't be changed.
p. 46 ...if animals don't care about a pecking order and they get along, that energy is transferred to production. In other words, when members of a group - be they human beings or chickens - focus only on competing their way to the top, they are likely to peck one another to death. They they work to lift one another up, however, everybody wins.
p. 51 A virtuous cycle (as opposed to a vicious cycle) is an upward spiral of potential whereby with each success, you garner more resources, which, in turn, allow you to achieve greater and greater successes.
p. 65 In basketball, for example, you would think that shooting percentage would best predict the outcome of a game, right? But in fact, a large BYU study found that the ratio of assists to turnovers is much more predictive of success. That's because lots of turnovers means players are hogging the ball so that they can score, whereas lots of assists means the players aren't trying to make individual shots; they are trying to get the collective win.
p. 117...praise is actually a renewable resource, Praise creates a Virtuous Cycle - the more you gibe, the more you enhance your own supply. When done right, praise primes the brain for higher performance, which means that the more we praise, the more success we create. And the more successes there are, the more there is to praise.
p. 119 By denying the light of praise, we extinguish it. By bending the light toward others, we magnify it.
p. 121 The easiest way to stop comparison praise is simply to eliminate superlatives from our vocabulary - "the best," "the fastest", "the smartest", "the prettiest". All of these undercut others instead of telling people they are great in their own right. Instead, follow what I consider an inviolable law of praise for leaders and parents: Do not compliment at the expense of others. ....the best praise is by actions changed.
p. 127...if we want to encourage excellence, we need a daily practice to shine attention on instances of excellence. The most powerful one in my life, and the one I suggest in every talk, is to take to minutes (maximum) each morning to simply write and send a text message or email praising or thanking someone in your life. Of all the positive habits I have, this is the most powerful one for multiple reasons. First, you have just scanned your relationships for something positive to spotlight, helping you see more positives, which, in turn, gives you more to spotlight. When I suggest this at companies, managers say that that simple email in the morning causes them to look for and see more things to praise and recognize on their teams the rest of the day.
p. 151 He had some strategies on defense against the dark arts of the world:
1. Build a moat (ie no social media or news in the first or last hour of the day.....not a new concept! I really should consciously do it! On p. 153 he said individuals who watched just three minutes of negative news in the morning were 27% more likely to report their day as unhappy six to eight hours later - it was like taking a poison pill each morning that made all of your efforts, energies, and interactions throughout the day more toxic)
2. Built a mental stronghold. This means to develop habits routines to remain calm, on task and hopeful in the face of immeasurable stress and sadness. (this was in reference to hospital teams who deal with big tragic events best)
3. Learn the art of Mental Aikido - look at stress positively. Accept it and work with it. Reframe failure as a learning opportunity.
4. Take a vacation from your problem - taking time away from your problems may actually help you reap one of the greatest competitive advantages that exist today....maintain a positive and engaged brain. Plan time away on a regular basis.
5. Pick your battles.
p. 182 How to channel collective energy
1. General more positive energy by creating Tours of Meaning (look for the beautiful in your every day life)
2. Use vivid direction to generate a path for that energy to flow
3. Accelerate the momentum you have created through the power of celebration. When you celebrate the good the negative seems to take care of itself.
p. 212 Realize that change is not a one time event. You will have to keep working on this for a lifetime!
You can't exercise today hoping to never need to exercise again. In truth, we exercise today so we can move our body again tomorrow. We must always be on guard and repairing what breaks down over time.
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