Big Potential How Transforming the Pursuit of Success Raises Our Achievement, Happiness, and Well-Being

Sean Aker is a friend, he's a New York Times best-selling author of The Happiness Advantage and Big Potential.

Big Potential being your second book.

Big Potential which looks at how we could actually pursue happiness with one another in our schools and our teams our families instead of trying to do it alone

Big Potential being your second book.

Big Potential which looks at how we could actually pursue happiness with one another in our schools and our teams our families instead of trying to do it alone

It's actually interesting because the book that came out was all about how happiness must be an interconnected pursuit and I had already committed to some of the talk so I had 13 talks that were lined up that I had to do.

I kind of felt like this book was a culmination of a lot of things I really cared about. It was the research that I'd been doing but also it was a reconnection to some of the things that I cared about almost at a spiritual level about how the pursuit of happiness has to be done with other people and so when Zoe was born the same week as a book lunch I kind of felt like I had two babies being born at the same time.

I don't want to make money off of the book it's not what books even really do.

It was more that this was something if there was one thing I wanted to say to the world who was this because I'd actually experienced some depression in my own life. I had experienced some dark times and now I'm a happiness researcher and in the process of doing both of those things more and more I was starting to realize how important others were in this pursuit of something I thought was a self-help idea.

Big potential actually ended up in the self-help section of Barnes and Noble.

It's kind of a fun little little bit there.

It was the research that I'd been doing but also it was a reconnection to some of the things that I cared about almost at a spiritual level about how the pursuit of happiness has to be done with other people and so when Zoe was born the same week as a book lunch I kind of felt like I had two babies being born at the same time.

I love the way you begin the book with this lightning bug story and analogy.

Big potential actually ended up in the self-help section of Barnes and Noble.

My favorite experiment right now is the other one that starts big potential as well which is two researchers in Virginia found.

It's kind of a fun little little bit there.

I don't want to make money off of the book it's not what books even really do.

It was more that this was something if there was one thing I wanted to say to the world who was this because I'd actually experienced some depression in my own life.

Big potential actually ended up in the self-help section of Barnes and Noble.

When I got depressed, I tried to do the same thing. I'd go think my way out of this. I don't need anyone's help. I'll be there for other people but I don't want to burden anyone and I went deeper and deeper into depression.