The ‘Big Potential’ of Social Connection

• Research suggests that strong social connections enhance our well-being, as well as our long-term happiness.
• Facing challenges with the support of others reduces perceived obstacles and builds resilience.
• By embracing social connection, individuals can ensure they not only succeed in their current roles but also pave the way for future opportunities.

Transcript

Shawn Achor: [00:15] There are a lot of factors preventing people from reaching their full potential. I think one of them is the sense that if we’re going to pursue happiness or success within our lives, we have to do it alone and in isolation.

[00:27] But in my research, we found that the greatest predictor of long-term levels of happiness was your social connection score. It’s other people.

[00:35] As I started working with companies in 51 countries, we realized that the greatest predictor of a team’s success rate was not their individual metrics. It was the social cohesion on the team. Did they feel they were connected? Could they find meaning in their work? Could they use their strengths in connection with that ecosystem?

[00:52] Part of what I’ve been looking at is how do we find some way of pursuing happiness and success in an interconnected way.

[00:57] In my most recent book, Big Potential, I outlined the research case about why we find that this is actually the case. One of the most interesting psychology experiments that has been done was looking at how we look at the world.

Including somebody else on a journey with us literally changes the lens through which we view the world.

[01:10] They found that if you look at a hill, you need to climb in front of you. If that participant is alone looking at that hill, the hill looks 20 to 30 percent steeper to the brain than if you put another participant standing next to them that they’re told is going to climb the hill with them.

[01:24] Including somebody else on a journey with us literally changes the lens through which we view the world.

[01:29] Our perception of the challenges in front of us are subjective, not objective, which means the more that we feel like we’re connected to one another, the less those challenges loom large. It gives us a belief that our behavior matters, and we move forward.

[01:43] We found that this was true not only for physical barriers but for emotional ones as well. Trying to find a job in the midst of a world with AI, to find ways of being able to pay off our debts, to achieve success that we’ve seen on Instagram, or being able to overcome depression and anxiety.

[2:02] All of these things are wrapped around this idea that if we treat happiness like an individual sport, we get small potential.

[02:09] Big potential happens when you enhance the ecosystem, when you spread power out, when you defend the system together, when you sustain those gains, and when we do that, those hills in front of us start to collapse.

As we link in with the system and connect our successes with others and our mental health, it turns out the entire system starts to do better.

[02:19] The other side of it is we found that fireflies or lightning bugs light up individually, alone, and randomly in the dark, and their success rate at reproduction per night is 3 percent.

[02:20] But MIT found these two firefly species on opposite sides of the globe that instead of lighting up individually and randomly, they all light up and go dark simultaneously.

[02:39] When they do so, their success rate doesn’t drop because they’re lighting up with their competition. It actually goes up to 82 percent per bug. The entire system does better.

[02:48] What we found was that the reason that was working was that there were virtuous cycles created within systems. As we link in with the system and connect our successes with others and our mental health, it turns out the entire system starts to do better.

[03:02] Which explains the research we' re getting, not only on students, but on these corporations. We were finding over and over again that the greatest predictor of happiness and success was other people.