In this episode, Cindy Villanueva and I dug into “Big Potential” by Shawn Achor.
You can listen to the episode here:
You can find more about Cindy at CindyVillanueva.com, and here is Shawn’s TED Talk that Cindy mentioned during the show. Enjoy!
Full Transcript:
Mickey Mellen
As the research begins to emerge, we seem to be learning that almost every attribute of your potential, from intelligence to 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. So that was a brief snippet from the book Big Potential and here with me to discuss it again. For the second time in the show is Cindy Villanueva. So Cindy, welcome.
Cindy Villanueva (00:30.418)
Thank you so much for having me.
Mickey Mellen (00:32.086)
Yeah, so glad to have you back. You always offer the best books up. We’re joking ahead of time. I give people a list of books to choose from. You’re like, no, I’m not picking from that list. I’m picking Big Potential because you love this book that much. that’s, and it was, it was fantastic. I’m glad you picked it. But I guess, yeah, why don’t you kick us off? Why did you pick this? Why did you suggest this one for the show?
Cindy Villanueva (00:48.913)
You know, I’ve got to say, you know, the first time I was on, we talked to Adam Grant, who’s my, you know, all time favorite researcher. Sean Acor is right up there in that bunch. And I saw him speak at the very first Work Human Conference several years ago. And he actually talks about that conference in this book. So I have really enjoyed his work. I think it’s, it’s, it’s groundbreaking and it really makes us look at things very, very differently. And this one in particular,
Mickey Mellen (00:54.428)
yeah.
Cindy Villanueva (01:18.431)
he takes the whole notion of individual success and achievement and and excellence and turns it on its head and says yeah that’s all well and good but there’s a ceiling it’s it’s you’re capped at a certain level that you’re able to do but when we broaden that when we look at groups when we look at collaboration now suddenly that feeling banishes and everybody does better and
Mickey Mellen (01:27.811)
Mm
Cindy Villanueva (01:45.243)
And not only to just say it’s the sort of touchy feely like, let’s all get along and kumbaya, but this is backed by research, which is one of the reasons I really like Sean Acor is that, you know, he’s a Harvard researcher. He’s one of the top researchers in happiness, but this one in particular struck a chord with me.
Mickey Mellen (02:02.35)
Yeah, I like that very similar to Adam Grant like you said where it’s a lot of great ideas But also very heavily researched back so it’s not just this sounds neat But it’s there’s actually a lot of proof behind it and that was fascinating just to see the difference between Yeah, individual achievers and how far they can go versus with a team and again sounds nice in theory But then he has so much data to back it up One quote that stood out to me early on in the book He said we spend the first 22 years of our life being judged and praised for our individual attributes and what we can achieve alone when for the rest of our life
Cindy Villanueva (02:22.366)
Exactly.
Mickey Mellen (02:31.886)
our success is almost entirely interconnected with that of others. it’s one of those where we’re trained kind of the wrong way. think Seth Godin talks a lot about that too, where what we learn in school isn’t the same type of learning we need in the real world. Remind me too of Malcolm Gladwell talking about people that take the LSATs and stuff to become lawyers, their time. He’s like, why are we timing these things? I want the people that have the best answers. If it takes a little longer, that’s okay. Like I’ll give my lawyer an extra 20 minutes to get the right answer, but it’s just different from what we’re trained to do well and what we actually need in the real world. And Sean really…
Cindy Villanueva (02:42.172)
It’s so true.
Cindy Villanueva (02:52.668)
I did.
Mickey Mellen (03:00.396)
lays that out well with individual achievement versus group performance.
Cindy Villanueva (03:04.038)
Absolutely.
Mickey Mellen (03:06.21)
Let’s see, he talked about the seeds of big potential. He had a lot of different chunks of like these five steps, these three steps, and these four takeaways. And we won’t get into all of them, I think, but I thought the seeds were kind of interesting. That was kind of his main piece of how you can achieve that big potential. So I’ll kind of lay out each piece of it. So seeds is an acronym, S -E -E -D -S. I’ll kind of lay out each one and let you maybe speak a little bit about that. So he talks about first to surround, surround yourself with a star system of positive influencers. So what are your thoughts there?
Cindy Villanueva (03:14.812)
Hahaha
Cindy Villanueva (03:25.352)
Yes.
Cindy Villanueva (03:36.275)
You know, it’s easy to say, look, you you’re gonna act like the people around you, but the research backs it up. You really, really do. We rub off on one another. And so it behooves us if we want to excel and we want to live a life of excellence that we surround ourselves with people who are likewise minded and who are not, you know, trying to step on us to get there, but who are collaborating with us. So I think that was.
Mickey Mellen (03:43.182)
yeah. Yep.
Cindy Villanueva (04:02.706)
That was a really key one and it’s the foundation for all the rest of them.
Mickey Mellen (04:07.266)
Yeah, and that’s a good point about them not wanting to step, because yeah, you want to surround yourself with great people, but they have to be in the group mindset. If they’re still in the individual mindset, they’re going to see you as a step on the ladder to success versus a teammate to go with them. So that’s well said there. The first E is expand. Expand your power by helping others lead from every seat. I really like this one. Talk a bit about that one.
Cindy Villanueva (04:19.358)
Precisely, precisely.
Cindy Villanueva (04:27.985)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, everybody can, you know, we always hear that, everybody can be a leader. You don’t have to be a manager or supervisor or something to lead. But the truth is there are ways to expand your influence. You know, one of the things I tell my students, because I’m an adjunct professor at Concordia University in Austin. And when I talk to kids, I used to teach business ethics a lot. And sometimes the students would just be overwhelmed at the…
all of the stuff in the world that needs help. And one of the things I would tell them is to the degree that you are able and within the circle of influence you have, be your best, do the best, shine your light. And so if that’s in your dorm room or in your family or someday in a company or maybe you’re president of a country, whatever your circle of influence, expand and share that so that everybody has the opportunity to participate.
Mickey Mellen (04:57.304)
You
Mickey Mellen (05:23.778)
Yeah, well said. Yeah, this is one of those, like you said a minute ago, it’s one of those that a lot of people say, yeah, yeah, sure, everyone can lead, but we know who the real leaders are. But he, again, gives examples and data to show, no, no, the best organizations, everyone is a leader. He says, at one point here, says, quote, if we want small potential, we should leave leadership in the hands of the, leaders. If we want big potential, we must inspire and enable others to lead from every seat. When you let go of the idea that only certain people have the power to lead, you can dramatically amplify not only your own power, but also the power of the group as a whole. So, and he gets a lot more into it in the book, but it’s…
Yeah, again, he says something that seems good, but then he backs it up and it makes it great. So sorry, yeah, go ahead.
Cindy Villanueva (05:54.535)
I
Cindy Villanueva (05:58.79)
No, no, no, I was just going to say one of my favorite quotes in the book he says, because when we work to help others achieve success, we not only raise the performance of the group, we exponentially increase our own potential. It’s the quintessential win -win.
Mickey Mellen (06:11.682)
Mm -hmm.
Yes, for sure. Well said. So the second E in seeds is enhance. Enhance your resources by becoming a prism of praise.
Cindy Villanueva (06:23.199)
I have to say this is my favorite part of the acronym SEEDS. I tend to be a praiser anyway, so it was nice to see that that was part of his program. yeah, you know, I think it’s really interesting when he talks about, a lot of times we see praise as being a zero sum game. That if you’re praised, somehow I must not be praised. Or if someone’s lifted up, somebody else loses.
Mickey Mellen (06:32.46)
I can see that.
Mickey Mellen (06:46.691)
Mm
Cindy Villanueva (06:53.033)
But that praise is the prism. When we receive praise, know, he says, look, I’m the guy on the stage. My name’s on the cover of the book. But there’s all kinds of people who have helped me. And when you praise, when you refract that praise like a prism, when you don’t just suck it in yourself, but you let it bounce back out to others, think of the beauty of a prism. You know, if you think of something that just sucks light in, and then you think of something that radiates light out,
How much more beautiful is it? And that’s who we are when we radiate praise, when we will be that prism and expand that praise across to others. I think that was really my favorite part of the book.
Mickey Mellen (07:33.334)
Yeah, he gets so deep into that too. I loved his thoughts about not comparison praising, which we’re all so bad about saying, you were the best one up there, you’re the prettiest one. That sounds like a praise, it’s ultimately putting down everyone else. And so there’s ways to praise to tell them about what they did specifically well versus comparing them to others as being the best or the smartest or whatever the case may be. So I thought that was fantastic.
Cindy Villanueva (07:38.62)
Yes!
Cindy Villanueva (07:52.607)
100 % and you know the other the other piece of that you know that it does it does demean others by comparing you but I loved the point that he made then then it sets the bar for the next time like okay well you were the best one of all of these well what happens next time when you’re in a group of higher level people does that mean then you’re not going to be the best does that mean that you’re not going to be worthy of praise and so it actually doesn’t motivate
Mickey Mellen (08:04.792)
Mm.
Cindy Villanueva (08:18.239)
It is the exact opposite. makes you fearful to go into the next one because, my goodness, how am I going to compare next time? And I love that he brought up Carol Dweck. The mindset concept is that, you know, we’re not looking at that comparison, but we’re looking at the process.
Mickey Mellen (08:28.174)
Mm -hmm. Yes.
Mickey Mellen (08:33.292)
Yep, awesome, I love that. The D in SEEDS is defend. Defend the system against negative attacks.
Cindy Villanueva (08:41.181)
Yeah, I think that’s so important. You have to be aware that this is a revolutionary way of approaching life and that there are going to be plenty of people around you who don’t agree and you have to, I love the moat concept, that you have to be very mindful of defending that position. You know, I have been in big corporations, I’m consulting now, but I’ve been in big corporations where
Mickey Mellen (08:56.524)
Yep.
Cindy Villanueva (09:09.247)
they have the nine block and you have to take everybody in your group and you have to stick them in these blocks and the GE thing of the bottom 10%, we’re gonna get rid of those people. And I never understood it and I complained all the time because if I am being judged, as part of what I’m being judged on is my ability to hire really good people who are going to be great at what they do.
Mickey Mellen (09:19.65)
Right.
Cindy Villanueva (09:35.807)
How is it that I’m supposed to say those fantastic people I’ve hired now are in the bottom 10 %? Well, the bottom 10 % of superstars is the top 10 % of somebody else’s and yet somebody else’s group. So it just never made sense to me. And you’ll find corporations all over this country who still insist on a bell curve or that nine block theory. And that somehow people who are absolutely doing a fantastic job who are
you know, following this system of seeds and yet somehow you’re supposed to shove them in that bottom 10%. It just makes zero sense because now you’re going to take people who are wonderful. You’re going to absolutely demotivate them and you are not going to retain.
Mickey Mellen (10:21.07)
Yep, no that was very true. I also like when it comes to defense is talk about watching negative news. He said, our study revealed that individuals who watched just three minutes of negative news in the morning were 27 % more likely to report their day as unhappy six or eight hours later. It was like taking a poison pill each morning that made all your efforts, energies, and interactions throughout the day more toxic. Like three minutes, it’s crazy. Just a little bit can just send your whole day off. And so the opposite is also true. Yeah, spend three minutes doing the right thing and it can make your whole day presumably that much better.
Cindy Villanueva (10:44.157)
Unbelievable.
Cindy Villanueva (10:49.513)
Precisely. Precisely. It’s funny, I highlighted that sentence too. That really stood out to me. You know, it me think of Admiral, I’ve forgotten his name, but the guy who wrote the, first just make your bed. You know, start off your day with something positive that is a great achievement and it sets the tone for the trajectory of the rest of your day.
Mickey Mellen (10:54.017)
Yeah.
Mickey Mellen (11:00.363)
Mm -hmm, yes.
Mickey Mellen (11:08.258)
Yep, yep, love it, for sure. So that’s seed, we got the last S here, so the last S is sustain, by sustain the goal, excuse me, sustain the gains by fueling the virtuous cycle. So tell us about the virtuous cycle and how to get that roll in here.
Cindy Villanueva (11:24.325)
Yeah, the virtual cycle is just the more that good that you do, the more good you get results and then you want to do more. It’s almost kind of like if you’re, you know, if you’re looking at a diet, right, you’re trying to lose some weight and you’re working really hard and you’re working on it’s so difficult, but then you lose that first five pounds.
and then you get excited about it. And then, you know, you’re looking at that candy bar and you’re like, no, because man, I’m not going to lose that. I’m not going to gain back that five pounds. did so well. And so now you’ve lost another couple. And then, all of a sudden it’s a little bit easier to eat your spinach and it’s a little easier to turn away from that pasta. And it becomes a virtuous cycle. Same kind of thing when you’re dealing with, with people and you’re talking about potential.
Mickey Mellen (11:44.022)
Mm
Cindy Villanueva (12:04.411)
As you start refracting that praise and other people are expanding it and expanding it, you’re seeing more and more leadership activities and you’re seeing people who are doing the right thing and coming together and that feeling just continuing to lift and lift and actually vanish at some point. That’s your virtuous cycle, but you have to be mindful of it. You know, we get lazy and, it’s, very, very important that we stay, that we stay on top of it, that we’re mindful of what’s happening and we.
Mickey Mellen (12:21.334)
Mm -hmm. Yep. yeah.
Cindy Villanueva (12:32.87)
We honor it, we cherish it, we nurture it. Yeah, I think it’s super important.
Mickey Mellen (12:38.06)
Yeah, awesome. Well said. So that was the seeds, the surround yourself with the star system, expand your power by helping others, enhance your resources by becoming a prism of praise, defend the system against the negative attacks, and sustain the gains by fueling the virtuous cycle. And again, that’s kind of his main outline, but he has so many more outlines throughout the book. I don’t think we’ll get into many of those other specific ones, but there were some other points that just stood out to me that I thought were fantastic. I’ll share a few of those, and certainly a few of some as well. The big one to me as a sports fan was about Nick Saban. I never realized this with him before, but it says,
Cindy Villanueva (13:05.522)
Yes.
Mickey Mellen (13:07.382)
Nick Saban, the venerated head coach of the University of Alabama, until recently, the perennial championship winning football team, doesn’t buy into the tradition of handing out game balls to MVPs because he believes that singling out players for individual achievements goes against his winning objective. For him, success is all about the team’s win, not one superstar’s stats. And I understood that about Nick before. I always knew he was a team guy, but I kind of assumed like you have to give out a game ball. That’s just what coaches do. He’s, no, he doesn’t. He wants to hold by what he does and do it the right way. And I thought that was just.
eye -opening for me. It totally makes sense, know, knowing what he did and the success he had, but just shocked me. I just kind of assumed that’s something all coaches just did and I guess not. So that was cool.
Cindy Villanueva (13:44.361)
Yeah, and it’s, and you think, you know, again, it’s revolutionary and you look at it and like you’re saying, I’m shocked. I just thought that’s what was done. So many of our business practices are just, I just thought that’s the way that we did it. And the fact that Sean Acor has come up with these ideas that we all kind of go, Hmm, wow. You can do it like that. You don’t have to give the game ball. You get to praise everybody. gosh. Wow. That’s great.
Mickey Mellen (13:48.695)
Mm
Mickey Mellen (13:58.232)
Mm
Mickey Mellen (14:05.846)
Yep.
Cindy Villanueva (14:10.749)
But once we do it and we realize, gosh, this isn’t just Pablum, this is good stuff. And then we enter into that virtuous cycle. I think it’s fantastic. And one of the things I appreciated was he said, Hey, look, I’m not talking about giving all the losing kids a trophy. That’s not what I’m saying here because that’s proven to be wrong as well. And it is problematic.
Mickey Mellen (14:27.316)
Right.
Mickey Mellen (14:32.056)
Problematic for sure, yeah.
Cindy Villanueva (14:35.359)
One of the things that I really loved when he was talking about defending against negative influences, he says, a daily practice of gratitude is one example of a mental stronghold. And I have found that to be so true. And if you watch his Ted talk, I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but anybody who’s listening to this 12 minutes of your life that you will be delighted that you spent. First of all, he’s absolutely hilarious, but it’s such good information and wonderful research, but
Mickey Mellen (14:51.255)
I have not, yeah.
Mickey Mellen (14:57.609)
Nice.
Cindy Villanueva (15:05.359)
He talks about the fact that having a sense of gratitude, let’s say you have a practice that every evening you’re going to write down one thing or two things that you saw or experienced that day for which you can be grateful. What ends up happening is that your brain actually kind of rewires because during the day, you know, you’re going to do that. So you’re primed to look for it. whereas normally we’d be really, really kind of glomming onto the negative things.
Mickey Mellen (15:28.12)
Mm
Cindy Villanueva (15:33.671)
your brain is running this program in the background that it’s scanning for this stuff. And it becomes part of that virtuous cycle that more and more you start looking for things to be grateful for, meaning that you become more grateful, meaning you’re looking for more things and optimism and happiness is elevated as a result of it. So I really appreciated that. That’s one of the things that I try to put into practice and it’s definitely a benefit.
Mickey Mellen (15:39.881)
Yep.
Mickey Mellen (16:00.962)
Yeah, you can prime your brain on so many things. I’ve talked about before how photographers, in a photo walk, their brain is primed to look for photo opportunities, and this is the same kind of thing, where if you do the gratitude, your brain is just primed to look for opportunities, and just like the negative. I think that’s probably, I don’t remember the details, but the people that watch the negative news in the morning are probably looking for all the other bad things in world two, and that just makes, it’s not the three minutes that did it, it’s the three minutes that primed them to look for the bad in the world and see everything is worse, so.
Cindy Villanueva (16:09.576)
Precisely.
Cindy Villanueva (16:20.081)
Yep.
Cindy Villanueva (16:25.043)
well said. Yes, that’s actually a great distinction. That’s very good distinction.
Mickey Mellen (16:30.806)
And then I guess somewhat related, something I write about a lot is the ability to change and people that are open to change and people that aren’t. And so I’ll just read what he says here. said, find it so odd when people not vigorously the idea that you cannot change other people. And yet five minutes later, talk about the toxic effect of negative people in their lives or workplaces. If your day can be ruined by an angry email from a client, a rude encounter with a neighbor or bad interaction with your manager, why is the opposite not equally true? Why can’t the interactions with the positive people in your life make your day better and the choice to flourish easier? So I think we both see that a lot. No one’s going to change my mind.
Cindy Villanueva (16:46.088)
you
Cindy Villanueva (16:58.622)
Absolutely.
Mickey Mellen (17:00.752)
You know, can’t change my mind about politics or about sports or about whatever. I hope so. I hope people can change your mind. The right people should be able to. And he gets it more into terms of mood rather than agreeing on certain topics. But I think both can be true. I think people certainly do affect your mood. I think we’ve all seen that. But I think people should be able to change you in other ways too. There’s people I respect on social media that make a point I don’t agree with. Well, if there’s someone they’re smart and I respect them, I’m at look at it. And sometimes it will change my ideas. yeah. Right, exactly. Yeah.
Cindy Villanueva (17:25.051)
Which gets you back to Think Again by Adam Grant, right? Same. You know, one of the quotes that I highlighted that I really liked, he says, when we are brave enough to expand power to others, suddenly we find that a huge weight is lifted off our shoulders, increasing our power to lift even heavier loads.
Mickey Mellen (17:28.834)
Think Again is one of my favorite books ever, but yes, good call. I don’t want to get too far down that road, but yes. Yeah, Think Again is fantastic, but yeah, but.
Mickey Mellen (17:50.926)
I love that, yes. That was a fantastic one. One more ahead here. This one, the last sentence here is what really blew my mind. The whole idea here is interesting. The last sentence blew my mind. It’s about the shrinking hill. He said, an incredible research published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, the researchers found that if you’re looking at a hill and judging how steep it is, the mere presence of social support around you transforms your perception. In fact, if you look at the hill while standing next to someone you consider to be a friend, the hill looks 10 to 20 % less steep than if you were facing that hill alone.
That is a stunning finding. Perception of your objective. Physical world has transformed by including others in your pursuit of achievement. And then the last part that got me, the result holds even if the friend is three feet away, facing the other direction and silent. So just having someone near you, not, because I figured someone was supportive and you were talking and engaging, you were in a better mood. If they’re just near you, facing the other way and silent, you still look at obstacles as less daunting than if you were by yourself. And that was, my mind. I thought that was amazing.
Cindy Villanueva (18:33.437)
Yes.
Cindy Villanueva (18:43.263)
That’s fascinating. That is fascinating. And how much more interesting is that then when we think about all of the folks, you know, during the pandemic, post pandemic who are working from home and are really, really isolated. And, you know, I mean, I’ve been a remote worker since 2006. So, I mean, I’ve done it for a really, really long time, but there’s something very, very magical about being around people, you know, physically in the same building with people.
Mickey Mellen (18:55.48)
Mm
Cindy Villanueva (19:11.709)
So not to knock working from home, I do it every day, but I think there’s something really, really special about being around other people and working towards the same goal. to his point, you don’t even have to be working towards the same goal. You can be looking in the other direction, but just having somebody there does change your perspective about the difficulty of the task.
Mickey Mellen (19:11.82)
sure.
yeah.
Mickey Mellen (19:28.271)
Yep.
Mickey Mellen (19:32.854)
sure you feel more like a team like yeah in our case you know we’re kind of a distributed team our team works great from home but we try to get together when we can I mean next week we have our project managers flying down from Michigan with just everyone’s getting together for three days just to be with each other because it makes a difference it’s it’s fantastic so we’re getting low on time here do you any other thoughts from the book you want to share any other highlights we didn’t get to
Cindy Villanueva (19:39.793)
Yeah.
Cindy Villanueva (19:46.579)
really does.
That’s alright.
Cindy Villanueva (19:53.838)
That was really it. mean, I just I found it to be Just such a great read. It’s an easy read for your listeners who’ve not been Exposed to Sean Acor. It’s easy readers, even though we’re talking about a lot of research. not like heavy lifting research It’s just it’s the stuff that he really does and it just backs up everything and one of the things I think that’s really interesting about him is he does a lot of military
Mickey Mellen (20:03.031)
It is.
Mickey Mellen (20:09.578)
Agreed, yeah, he puts it in form of stories so much,
Mickey Mellen (20:19.256)
Mm
Cindy Villanueva (20:19.349)
examples because he went through those are tc things i can say from my own experience not in the military but in martial arts and doing some of those you know really difficult things going through mastery testing and that’s what you remember is the camaraderie and shoulder to shoulder and getting through those difficult times not what you’ve got if you got that you know the award for best tester or whatever it’s that it’s them the pulling together and achieving of goals together that’s really the things that you remember for decades
Mickey Mellen (20:47.512)
Yeah, that’s why I thought it was interesting to discuss this book with you because I see you as a martial arts person and an author and both of those are essentially single person things, but they’re really not. Like you’re not getting your book out the door by yourself. You’re not achieving martial arts by yourself, even though they’re both single player activities.
It’s taken a whole team to help you push to create these awesome books and to expand your knowledge and all that. yeah, this was, it opened my eyes when I thought through that perspective. Like this is an interesting one for Cindy who does things by herself, but yeah, you absolutely don’t do them by yourself when it really comes down to it. So yeah, yeah, I that was great. So speaking of that, tell folks a bit about where they can find you, about your books, all the stuff you’ve got going. You stay plenty busy, so.
Cindy Villanueva (21:15.264)
Ha
So true.
Cindy Villanueva (21:26.611)
Yes, yes, yes. So, so I have done some crazy stuff this year. I debuted my novel this year. I had written nonfiction in the past. So Don’t Fight Mad, A Black Belt’s Quest to Recapture Joy is a memoir self -help book talking about how to overcome life’s challenges and it uses martial arts as a metaphor.
Mickey Mellen (21:47.115)
Mm
Cindy Villanueva (21:47.133)
You certainly don’t have to be a martial artist to get involved in it. But I started playing around with fiction a few years ago and oddly enough for this black belt girl, I started writing romance. And so I’m writing a series, it’s the Blooming series. Book one is called Bread Pudding in Barcelona. It is available on Amazon. You can also get it through my website, which is CindyVianueva .com. I’m sure you’ll have that in the show notes. You can follow me on the socials, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
Mickey Mellen (21:57.399)
Hahaha.
Mickey Mellen (22:11.032)
Yep, for sure.
Mickey Mellen (22:15.882)
Awesome, that’s so awesome. So great to have you again, Cindy. I’m sure we’ll talk again soon. All right, thank you.
Cindy Villanueva (22:19.236)
Absolutely a pleasure. Thank you.
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