EntreLeadership - #271: Big Potential with Shawn Achor

Episode Date: June 18, 2018

Researcher and New York Times best-selling author Shawn Achor returns to share some stunning new research on success, happiness and how to reach your full potential. Here’s a hint: You can’t do it alone. Instead, it is determined by how we complement, contribute to, and benefit from the abilities and achievements of people around us. Shawn has worked with over a third of the Fortune 100 companies, as well as the NFL, the NBA, the Pentagon and the White House. His talks have taken him to more than 50 countries, where he has spoken to CEOs in China, doctors in Dubai, schoolchildren in South Africa, and farmers in Zimbabwe. Join us to learnhow to unlock hidden sources of potential in yourself and others. entreleadership.com/podcast The Ultimate EntreLeadership Reading Guide from EntreLeadership Collect and Consult: How to Use a Lead Magnet to Drive a Consultation from Infusionsoft Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Andre Leadership. Now, here's your host, Ken Coleman. Coming to you from the Music City, this is the broadcast of leaders by leaders for leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Our feature interview this episode is with Sean Acre. He's a return guest, if you remember him from the Happiness Advantage. his new book is entitled, Big Potential, How Transforming the Pursuit of Success,

raises our achievement, happiness, and well-being. It is fantastic stuff. We also have some great free resources from our Entree leadership team and our friends at InfusionSoft. Well, I will tell you, when we had Sean on the first time with the happiness advantage, it is a book that is dog-eared, underline, highlighted. It sits on my desk here at Ramsey Solutions. I go to it many, many times for the work I do on the Ken Coleman show. It's just that rich with research and data.

And I'm a fan of Sean. No apologies. And so when he came out with another book, I went, we've got to have him back. I think this guy's research, to put it mildly, is the best on this topic. When we talk about the pursuit of success, achievement, happiness, well-being, all this wrapped together, this is another book that is laid out so well. And the information is, I believe, life-changing and business-changing. I'm just going to say it.

I love Sean Acor. Here is my conversation with Sean. I just loved a nerd out on what led you from the happiness advantage. And this certainly is in line and congruent to that work. But what led you to this research that came out in this book entitled Big Potential? Well, it grew out of my love of researching happiness and figuring out if we could quantify changes to someone's levels of compassion or optimism. So I've been doing this work now for over a decade going out to schools and the company sharing

this research. And I went out to the CDC, to the Center for Disease Control for one of those talks. And someone who was one of the leaders there got up and said over the past decade while you've been sharing this happiness research, depression rates in the U.S. have doubled. And anxiety rates are the highest they've ever been in our schools. And I realized that we're talking more about. happiness now, but I think we still might be pursuing it wrong. And what I looked at in the happiness advantage was this idea that breaking down the myth that if you work harder, you're more

successful and because you're successful, then you're happier and trying to show how if our success rates rise for the next five years, our happiness levels flatline. But if you raise somebody's levels of happiness by deepening their gratitude or their optimism, every single educational outcome, every single business outcome rises dramatically. But as I was doing this, I realized, that we've become so fragmented as a society. We put happiness books in the self-help section of Barnes & Noble. And what I realized as I was doing this research and going deeper into it, we now have big data, which means we're not just having your data.

We have your data, how it's connected to other people. And what I started realizing was that happiness might be an individual choice, but it wasn't just an individual choice. It was an interconnected choice. Turns out all these things that we thought we were studying correctly, like happiness and optimism and creativity, we were. setting wrong because we were just looking at your optimism. But for the past three decades, for example, if I wanted to test you on creativity, I'd put you into a psychology lab by yourself,

give you a brick, and ask you how many uses of that brick you can think of in a five-minute period of time. And that's one of our major test of creativity. But you know your creativity is different when you're around certain people. You're more creative when you're with certain people. You're funnier with certain people. Even if you're an introvert, if you're surrounded by higher introverts, you become an extrovert. And what we started realizing was, we need to stop pursuing happiness and success individually. That part of the problem is we keep feeling like we're alone in this process. But instead, the majority of our potential lies when we pursue happiness and success together.

Yeah. You know, it makes me think of the old classic phrase from Zig Ziglitt, you probably know, it really moved me as an 18-year-old. And it goes something like if you help others get what they want, you'll get what you want. I'm paraphrasing. But isn't that really what Zig was saying there? and you've seen it bear out with the research. Yeah, it's incredible.

We keep seeing these ideas where people try and pursue happiness to control things all by themselves or to own something. And what we're finding is one of the best ways to get out of depression, for example, was to do an altruistic act for somebody else because it stops your brain slot rattling between am I happy or am I not and starts focusing on the meaning that we're getting in our lives is actually coming from the people around us. Everyone who's listening or watching this, everyone has a different definition of happiness and meaning and purpose, but they actually all come back to making others better somehow. Even wanting to preserve the environment, we want to preserve it for other people as well.

So if we eliminate others from our pursuit of happiness and success, we miss out on so much of our happiness. I actually start Big Potential with I'm a Star Wars nerd. And I found out in the original manuscript that the most famous line in movie history, May the Force be with you. Wasn't in it. The original line was, may the force of others be with you. And Hollywood shaped that around.

Of course, Hollywood would love it. If you have individual superstars, you could raise up. And it's so much cooler to be a Jedi Knight, all powerful, all by yourself. But what we're finding in this research is the majority of our happiness, purpose, meaning, and our potential comes from how we're connected to the ecosystem of potential around us.

Well, this book is in two parts. so we won't be able to get through all of it, but I love to give people an overview. Part one is the big problem with small potential. Two chapters there, and then you spend the rest of the book on the seeds of big potential. We're going to go through some of those in a bit, but what is the big problem there? What are you doing in the first part of this book with the small potential? Specifically, you go in chapter one, the power of hidden connections, and then two, lifting the invisible ceiling of potential.

You've touched a bit on that, but what is the big problem with small potential? potential. So I think that the biggest problem is that when we pursue happiness and success alone, we don't get very much of the success and happiness actually becomes harder. All this research came out of two studies. One of them that doesn't sound interesting at first, but if you think about it for a second longer, it becomes amazing and life-changing. They had two researchers in Virginia have participants look at a hill in front of them that they had to climb. And what they found is that their brain actually perceives a hill that's 10 to 20 percent steeper when they're perceiving that, hill alone, then when they're perceiving that hill while standing next to a friend, three feet apart

from them, that's going to climb that hill with them. Now, our perception of the world shouldn't be changing. That hill shouldn't be changing. But our brain literally perceives a taller hill when we perceive it alone as opposed to with other people. And I think that that's not just the hills we have in front of us. That's the challenges we have within our personal lives. That's the challenges we have with young kids. That's the challenges we experience at work. When we feel like we're looking at the political and economic landscape. When we're doing it by ourselves, the world seems overwhelming. When we do it with other people, we're actually feeling like we can climb some of those hills. The other one came from 1935 where a biologist was going down a river in Indonesia, and he was supposed

to get back before darkness fell because all the predators come out, and he didn't make it back in time. And he looked at the mangrove trees lining the river. For a hundred yards, every single tree got struck by lightning all at once, and they went dark. And then they got struck by lightning again. And when his faculties were covered, he realized that the trees were actually covered with millions of bioluminescent lightning bugs. They were lighting up all at the same time. He came back to the States, wrote up the scientific paper about this miracle in the mangroves. And no one believed him because the whole point of being a lightning bug is to light up in the dark. And no one's leading this movement to get everyone to light up at the same time.

So no one believed him for eight decades until at MIT, two researchers found that if you have lightning bugs or fireflies and they light up individually, the success rate per bug at reproduction that night is 3%. But if they light up like they do in Indonesia or in a small portion of the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, if the lightning bugs light up to the millisecond with the other bugs, turns out the success rate goes from 3% to 82% per bug. The entire community was improving by not hyper-competing and hyper-comparing to one another. And what was happening there is what we call Virtua Cycle, which is once you get some positive momentum going,

more and more of the lightning bugs who start to bring their light there, which made the light brighter, which brought more and more lightning bugs. By the end of the night, you could see the light from the lightning bugs from five miles away. And we're starting to see this in our schools,

in our companies, in our churches, and our communities, where we're starting to see that as people try to surround themselves with positive people that have these deeper conversations where they pursue happiness and success together instead of hyper-comparing

like we do on social media and hyper-competing like we do in our schools, what you get is not one or two people shining very brightly, you get the entire community shining much brighter than they would have otherwise. Wow. Unbelievable. So much there. Absolutely crazy. I got to go back to the Hill study. Tell us why, or what you know, what did research show. Why do we sense that the hill is 20 to 25 percent steeper when I'm standing by myself. And then if, Sean, you stand next to me and we look at the same hill, it's not as steep. Why? What's going on in the brain? So the scientific thing, what they were

doing originally was they were looking at pain. So if somebody got injured or somebody who is elderly had a fall, they found that the hallway in front of them looks longer that they have to walk down. So pain was actually changing the physical dimensions within our world. Fatigued does the same thing. What happens is our brains become extraordinarily fatigued when we feel like we have the burden of creating happiness and change the world only on our shoulders. It's only when we connect to other people that our brain starts to feel like we have the resources necessary to accomplish this. And we stop just thinking about how do I get over that hill?

But how am I going to help somebody else get over that hill? When that occurs, your brain actually releases more resources necessary to help them. The other extraordinary thing embedded within this is what we're finding out of big data, which literally transforms everything I've been taught for the past four decades, which is this idea that you have your, your own creativity score, happiness score, and energy and intelligence and creativity. But it turns out all of these things that we thought were individual traits are connected ones. So for example, they did a study on heart disease and they found that heart disease up in Framingham,

Massachusetts followed the exact same patterns as a flu outbreak, which it shouldn't. There's no virus, right? So no one washes their hands because they don't want to have a heart attack. But it turns out that the choices we were making, the decisions were communicable. They were transferring to other people. And it wasn't just that. They went back to the data. And they found if you have a close friend, that both of you consider each other to be a close friend and they go through a divorce, your likelihood of divorce over the next five years rises by 30%. If you have a sibling who becomes obese, over the next two years, your likelihood becoming obese doubles. So what we're finding is that things like obesity and divorce, but also altruism, they found that if you give one dollar

with a group of 19 strangers, when they scatter to a group of 20 other strangers where each person's in a different group. Everyone who is in your first group after you gave the dollar gives a quarter more on average. When they scatter again, they give a nickel more on average two degrees separate from you. These are people you never met. Why I love this is because all through history, we've been hearing our religious leaders and philosophers saying that if you do something kind, it's going to have a ripple effect. And now we can actually see it and quantify it to say, yes, people two to three degrees separate from you, you never meet will actually become more altruistic because of the choices you're making because we're so connected.

And once we realize we're connected, that's where the power lies. Wow. Okay, this is crazy because this really puts a whole new level of intentionality on us as leaders, human beings, parents. I mean, this could go forever. Let's go into just for a moment, just we've got people listening in here who are very, very intentional and ambitious, their leaders, personal growth junkies. What you just said puts unbelievable.

pressure on us, good pressure, to make sure we're hanging around the right people. Because that data about heart disease, what you're saying is, is they were all eating the same way, drinking the same way, whatever else doing the same way. They just kind of all mirrored each other. And that's why the heart disease was essentially spreading. This is really true of negativity in the workplace, just negativity about, hey, I don't feel like I'm getting my shot in life. Everybody's overlooking me. All the stuff that is the antithesis of true happiness and purposeful living. Sean, I mean, what do we take away from this as it relates to people in our life that are pulling us down? Yeah. So I think it is two things. One, we know from this research that you can

pick up on negativity and stress like secondhand smoke. So if you're surrounded by it, you have a chance of picking up on some of those negative impacts, which is why it's so important to listen to podcasts that lift us up. Listen to news that have solutions, not just problems. Listen to people that edify you, surrounding yourself with positive people. I created these five pathways or these umbrella ideas that we see people who achieve their big potential. They seem to follow these different ideas. And I start the practical section with surround, which is idea of we have to surround ourselves with positive people because it makes that choice for us so much easier. It's easier for you to choose happiness if the people around you are being positive. But the other side of it is

that we don't have to lift our own happiness just by ourselves. So I think one of the most important things that I learned out of writing this book and going on this journey to understand happiness is I went through a period of depression myself while I was at Harvard. I spent 12 years there, eight of them. I was counseling the freshman students helping them transfer from high school to college and try to feel valued in that place. These are kids with high potential that 80% of them go through depression. And while I was doing this, I went through two years of depression myself. And up into that point, I have been so good at checking off individual metrics in my life. I was good at my work.

I was good at getting good grades. And so when I got depressed, I thought, I can think my way out of this. And I don't need anyone else's help. And I can overcome this all by myself. I don't want to pull people down. And the more I did that, the deeper I got into the depression until at one point, the turning point for me, which has been a turning point in this research, is I had to reach out to my eight closest friends and family and tell them over the past two years, I've been

depressed. I don't know how to get out of it. I really need your help. And the response was amazing. Not only was there's this groundswell of positive response where they're emailing me and calling me and meeting up with me and bringing me cupcakes. I'm not sure how the cupcakes out what they do. We're going to test it later. But the more important thing was it wasn't me trying to raise up my levels of happiness alone. That's small potential. And it wasn't just having somebody help me out of that. That's still small potential. Big potential occurred when I stopped trying to be perfect with other people. And as soon as I told them something I was going through, that vulnerability allowed them to open up about things that they were experiencing. Loneliness. depression, questioning their faith, or feeling homesick. And in the midst of this, what got me up each morning, it was a mutual friendship. We were both helping each other. Part of the reason that I felt meaning in my life when I was depressed was because I could be a good friend to those people who are

also being a good friend back to me. So what we're trying to do is to look at the people that surround you. Jim Rohn said that you're an average of the five people you spend the most time with. We've been finding between five to eight in the big data research. We've been finding that the people you spend the most time with, you pick up on those traits. If you put your kids at a school and the kids around them are disobedient or what they call it lazy in the study or they didn't follow the rules, our kids picked that up. And we immediately got terrified of negative peer pressure. But that same study that was done in the 80s, they actually found that if you put your kids and surround them with people they're compassionate and creative, your kid picks those up as well. So there can be positive peer

pressure. And so surrounding ourselves with positive people gives us the groundwork so that when we then need to deal with people where they're negative. We can be there for them, much like a doctor, you know, doesn't wash their hands and then stay away from sick people. They wash their hands. They get the shots and vaccines they need to. They learn everything they can about how to help people. Then they surround themselves with people. They're sick that need them. Well, I'm glad you took us into the first of the five seeds, the strategies, as you refer to them in the book, the second part of big potential and how we lift the ceiling. So let's go to the second one, because I think this is so relevant to our leadership and business audience.

E is for expand. The way you write it is expand your power by leading from any seat and inspiring others to do the same. This is huge, Sean, because you know, you've got a lot of young leaders listening in, leaders who aren't necessarily as high up the ladder as they'd like to be. And as human beings, you know this. We're all guilty of obsessing about the next and missing what we've got to do in the now. And I think that's what you're talking about here. How do we expand our power?

I think the most exciting part of the book is these practical takeaways because like you were describing, I'm one of these junkies for reading all of this research on how to change your life. And so the concept behind Big Potential literally does change the way that we pursue happiness success in some really important ways. So one of them is that I thought one of the best ways to expand power and to enhance the people around us was to praise and recognize people around us to lift them up. And I found actually that what I was doing while I was praising and recognizing them was actually just comparing them.

So I would see it with my son. I'd be like, you were the fastest kid out there. Or, wow, you worked so much harder on that project than anyone else did. Or you were the best speaker or pastor that I've heard in the past 10 years, whatever it is. I found that, you know, I would get a compliment sometimes from people. And they would say, you were the best speaker we had today, which at first I loved because I wanted and needed that. But then after a while, I started not liking it as much because sometimes other speakers were next to me. But also, I wasn't always going to be the best speaker.

So now that comparison unbalanced me, right? because now it wasn't just your comedic timing is good, or I love the research you have, it's that you're better than other people. And while we try to lift up one, we actually diminish the other. So what we've been doing in this research is try to eliminate comparison praise.

We stop comparing people when we're giving that praise. We praise the actual traits that they have. That enhances them. And then once you've enhanced them, what you're going to try to do is expand power back out to them, allow them to have control over making some of these positive changes within life.

For example, when I was depressed, instead of trying to control that power and do it myself, I expanded power to the people around me, allowing them to be a friend to me, but also deepening that social connection. And positive psychology, social connection is the breadth, the depth, and the meaning in your social relationships. And we find a social connection is the greatest predictor of your long-term happiness,

but social connection is as predictive of how long you end up living, as obesity, high blood pressure, or smoking, which is incredible. But the other side of it is that when we get stressed, You know, as these leaders are trying to build up their careers and help other people, when we get stressed. Oftentimes, we do the worst thing possible, which is we divorce ourselves from the people around us who are the greatest predictor of our happiness and success. We try to do things all on our own or we don't feel like we have time for other people. There's a study that just came out at Harvard Business Review where they found that if somebody's feeling very stressed like they have too much to do, they actually found, and it's counterintuitive, they found that if that person did something kind for somebody else, they wrote a two-minute podcast. of email, praising or thanking somebody else, or brought donuts in, or did something kind to the people

around them, they feel like they're too busy. But as soon as they do something for somebody else, their brain says, well, I must have had resources necessary to do that. And their stress levels dropped dramatically. So we just did this out in Flint, Michigan. We were working with the teachers there. And part of what we wanted to do is expand power back out to the teachers, because oftentimes they feel so victimized in a society where they don't have all the resources necessary to be able to teach these kids. And so instead of just going there and teaching them gratitude and things that we did do, but in addition to that, we went out and we did 1,200 random acts of kindness within Flint, Michigan, where we got the teachers, the janitors, the librarians, the superintendents to go out at

3.30 in the morning and bring donuts to the road construction crew and coffee. They went out to hospices. They went out to the hospitals. They went out to the community centers doing random acts of kindness for all the other people in the community. And what's amazing is these teachers are doing so much already. But when they felt victimized, they felt like they had no power. As soon as you expanded power back out to them to do something kind for someone else, they returned with higher levels of energy. They felt resilient.

They felt like that they had helped somebody else so that their behavior mattered. But now the entire community feels like they want to help them again. And so now what you've got is not individual light shining. You've got an entire community shining brighter together. Wow. Incredible. All right, let's talk about enhancing our resources of energy, creativity, and motivations. How do we best do that? So I think there's a lot of ways. I think it starts with if we're in a hyper-connected world, we've got to defend ourselves against something negative, right? Like a doctor doesn't go in and

doesn't wash their hands between patients. They have to do things they can actually defend their ability to help other people. And I think the same thing is true with our happiness and our creativity. So what I suggest people do is to do all those habits that I've been researching from the happiness advantage, which was, you know, getting people to practice three new things that they're grateful for every day for 21 days in a row. But to turn it into an act that wasn't just an individual act, do it with other people. So one of the most powerful things we saw initially was when people did those gratitude exercises around the dinner table, even if their kids didn't participate, their kids' levels of optimism rose. So the kids were actually hearing their parents' optimism, were learning more positive things about their parents.

which made them like them more. But also, they were picking up patterns of how to scan the world for the positive. So we did this out at a group of hospitals. We went out to Orlando Health, which is the hospital that served the night post club shooting victims. So the second largest shooting in U.S. history, when all the victims came to the hospital, they came to Orlando Health, which is a trauma one hospital. And for two years before this, because no one had any idea that was going to happen,

two years before that, we took the gratitude idea and we took a big potential spin on it. And what we did was we would start all the staff, meetings at the hospital with one thing that each person in the group was grateful for. So not just the leader would do it. Each person in the group would have to come in and say one thing that they were grateful for. To start every meeting, start every one of their major phone calls that they had. And for a while, people are like, how long are we doing this for? But then after the while, they realized, we're doing this all the time.

So I've got to think of something I'm grateful for before I come into the meeting. And for two years, they got to hear the great things that had gone on in people's life, which deepened their relationship. and when the most horrible thing that could happen with in that community occurred, when those bad days happened, they had two years of emotional immune system defense that they had built up by practicing gratitudes as a collective group and knowing these deeper positive things about one another. And on the morning after the second largest shooting in U.S. history, they started their meeting with gratitudes again in the midst of all the trauma they experienced, which I think is a reminder

that we've got to do this together. Some of the critical care nurses I worked with in Boston post the bombing that occurred there, they said that what they do is they keep an in case of emergency folder on their desk. And all year long, they put in letters that they get from a patient or a picture of a kid that they saved or a drawing that their kids did saying how much they love them while they're at work. And when those terrible days happen, they open up this in case of emergency folder. And they now have not just this one negative that's taken over their entire mental reality. They have a whole storehouse of positive imagery to help counterbalance and neutralize to remind us, even in the midst of the dark times in our life, there are still things to be grateful for because of our connections to other people.

And that's what we're trying to get people to do to preserve their creativity and their happiness. Wow. And then we'll just jump to the last one, sustain collective momentum to push your performance to new levels. I think if you just throw that sentence out, let it flow around offices. Everybody goes, yeah, give me some more of that. I want to sustain momentum. But I think the key word here is collective momentum. So again, you've already teed us up beautifully on how we're working together. So I'm thinking now of a leader who's got a small business or she has a small business and they're going, okay, this is what I want, Sean.

I want collective momentum. How do we do that? So I think it's transferring all these things we've learned about as individual traits like gratitude exercises and journaling and prayer and meditation and even a random act of kindness, what I was teaching people from the happiness advantage is to write a two-minute positive email each day, praising or thanking one person. But one of the hospitals I was working with,

they would actually, I went out and watched this, they have a random act of kindness parade. So instead of sending an email, which is just between you and that person, what they do is one of the administrators had applied for a grant and they'd gotten money for these hurricane victims, which is incredible.

So instead of sending an email saying, great job of this, they had 10 people come together. they have these like orange feather boas and orange hats and these 10 people will walk down the hallway in this parade to the person's office and they'll read a little speech they wrote about how incredible this person is in their office with these 10 people. But as they're walking down the hallway, people look out to see what they're doing. And as they look out, they see this parade so they follow it to see where these people are going. And by the time we got to this woman's,

this administrator's office, there are 25 people there to not only witness what was going on that was positive, but to support that person. And then when they went back to their offices, you could feel their energy, excitement. They had just stopped their work for a moment to do something powerful for somebody else. And when they returned back, they felt like they had all this collective energy and momentum. So that's what we're looking for is instead of just trying to raise up one person or just try to do it ourselves, turning the pursuit of happiness and success into a self-help thing. What we're looking for is that when we include other people in our ecosystem of potential, those people that are around us, the height of your potential is predicted by the people around you.

So we need to expand power to them and enhance them as well. So think about those things you do already, like writing a thank you note and then look to see how you can turn that into something that creates big potential. Like getting a whole group of people to go bring donuts to somebody's office or, you know, making it. So each person brought one of the flowers. So you have 12 people come to bring a bouquet of flowers to thank somebody for the work that they're doing. And you watch. It won't just be the recipient. It will be the providers of that care.

that had the greatest impact. And that's exactly what we found in this research. We found that people who receive social support, they're happier. But people who provide social support, they're the happiest of all of us. Yeah. The real takeaway, Sean, as I'm listening to you, is understanding this collective and what it means to, as your subtitle says, to raise our own achievement, happiness and well-being. It's all based on, are we raising others? If we're raising others up, it's going to come back to us. This isn't some silly karma theory. This is actually proven. And it's amazing. We think about it, what we've listened to already, Sean, with achievement and happiness and then even physical well-being with some of the data you share with us. This is so very, very important.

We've got to let you go here in a few minutes, but I like to do this with many of our guests. And that's just to let you share one word of encouragement to the leaders, the men and women who listen to this program to become their best. We need them. The world needs their light, but we need them hooking up with other fireflies. So what would you say to encourage them? I would say the biggest thing is you're not alone, that there are so many people that want to be doing positive change. We did a study just recently where we found that 31% of people are optimists, but not expressive of it at work, which means a third of the people that are surrounding us that seems so neutral are actually closet optimists, that when we give them permission to be optimist

and grateful with all the things going on within their lives, we actually allow. them to not only become optimists, but now you have this groundswell of positive people around you that allow us to make these positive changes and to shine so much brighter together in the darkness. Good stuff. He is Sean Acor. The new book is Big Potential, How Transforming the Pursuit of Success raises our achievement, happiness, and well-being. And again, if you're new to our program and you're new to Sean, his book, The Happiness Advantage. And honestly, before Happiness, both great books, the Happiness Advantage is a top 10 favorite. book of mine. I'm not taking anything away from big potential. I'm reading that as we speak and

enjoying that. But I think your work, Sean, is extremely important. I thank you for sharing vulnerably about a season of your life or you went through depression. I find that to be very, very inspiring to a lot of people who go through those dark days and feel like they may not be able to get out of it, but you have and then you have shown so much light. Just really appreciate your work. I want you to know that personally. And on behalf of our audience, thanks for being with. this. We're much better for it. Thank you so much for having me. Again, folks, the book is big potential how transforming the pursuit of success, raises our achievement, happiness, and well-being. It's wherever books are sold. All right, here come the free resources that you have

come to know and love, Entree Leadership, bringing you the ultimate Entree Leadership reading guide. We know that readers are leaders, and leaders are readers. We have 50 books that every small business owner needs to read. This is what we believe is mandatory reading. We've got 50 books and we've broken them down into nine different categories that we believe will give you renewed focus and energy from what you learn in these books. Here's how you get it. Text the phrase episode 271. That's episode 271. Text that to 33444. That's 33444. Now one other thing I'd love for you to do. When you get the reading guiding, you begin to read the books, I'd love for you to email the show. Podcast at Entreeleadership.com.

Podcast at Entreeleadership.com. And we'd love to know what are you learning? What stuck out to you? What challenged you? And then how are you making changes in your life as a result of reading? This is a fun little communication that we'd love to highlight if you're willing to let us use some of the emails. Just let us know, hey, it's okay for you to share this on the show. But what we're really creating here is accountability.

And that's what we want. We want you to read these books and share what you're learning. And while we're talking about free tools, how about InfusionSoft bringing you collect and consult how to use a lead magnet to drive a consultation? In this tool, you're going to learn how to create a lead magnet. You're going to set up report delivery email series. And you're going to prepare educational follow-up email series as well. Now, InfusionSoft has provided these templates. so that you can get started right now.

We're talking about action and results. To get this great resource, go to infusionsoft.com slash collect and consult. That's infusionsoft.com slash collect and consult. Or if you can't remember that, or just don't want to type it all out, go to the link in the show notes at episode 271 at entreleadership.com. Well, that's going to do it for this episode. On behalf of Will the producer, Tim the engineer, and the entire Entree leadership team. Thank you so much for listening.

We'll talk with you again very soon. Hey, folks, I want to make you aware that we have other great podcasts from Ramsey Solutions. Here's a sample of the Ken Coleman Show. According to a recent Gallup poll, nearly 70% of Americans are disengaged at work. If you dread going into work every Monday morning and you're just trying to make it to the weekend, the Ken Coleman Show is for you. everyone has a sweet spot. Your sweet spot is at the intersection of your greatest talent and greatest passion.

We will help you discover what it is you were born to do and then will help you create a plan to make your dream job a reality. You matter and you have what it takes. Join the conversation on the Ken Coleman Show. To hear full episodes, just search Ken Coleman in iTunes or go to Ken Coleman Show.com.