Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

So that's the first thing.

The next thing, and I'll talk about another book too because I know I'm, you know, I'm always interested, I think like most coaches are, but there's a book by an author that's sort of the foundational book of motivation for the last 20 or 30 years called Flow.

I mean, people have heard the term Flow.

The author, he's got kind of an alphabet name, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, but everybody's pretty much familiar with Flow, which is the concept of optimal challenge.

And people talk about flow, but the thing that I've really grabbed onto is that one of the signposts on the pathway to flow, to experiencing optimal experience when time slows down and things slow down and you just feel like you're in the zone, right? That's a flow state.

One of the main... signposts on that journey is frustration, right? Like, you are going to, if you are dedicating yourself to anything, to be your best at anything, you are going to run into what I call, you're going to bump up against optimal challenge, where you are being challenged optimally.

me, I feel like I'm, I've learned so much of that, but I'm like, but there is, but I watch a lot of artists who are some of the people who I love the most and And it seems like on a personal level, those things get missed.

So there's a book Flow, like about flow state.

I think it's, I can't say his name, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, something.

But about flow and living a life of flow.

But don't take the old sage's word for it.

One of the leading experts on the flow state is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a psychologist and university professor who wrote a best-selling book named Flow.

Mihaly states that we often hijack the flow state through what he calls psychic entropy, a state of inner disorder and chaos in the mind.

Instead of being focused, our attention is scattered.

So, one of the easiest ways to be happy is to be in a state of flow.

Now, there's this old book called Flow, The Psychology of Optimal Experience or Flow, The Secret of Happiness.

Now, I don't want to pronounce the author's name.

I know his first name is Mihaly, but his last name is almost impossible to pronounce.

So, I'm not going to embarrass myself or do injustice to the author.

But the book is about how... you know the happiest people are often the ones that are in flow which is they're working on a task that they're very comfortable with and i wanted to talk a little bit about flow in this podcast One of the reasons most people suffer and feel frustrated is because they can't get themselves to think the thoughts they always want to.

So one thing you'd realize if you just closed your eyes and just sat down is that you really can't control your stream of thoughts, right? You just have to let them flow and let them do their thing.

And any... you know attempt at trying to change your thoughts um actively is just going to lead to resentment and frustration and you know if you want to try this out just don't think of a white elephant for the And the reason for this is because most people don't realize that there are two brains inside you, right? There's the prefrontal cortex, which is the seat of intelligence.

No matter how challenging it is, is what I'm saying.

If I use the word challenge, listen, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in his book Flow, said, where challenge meets skill is the access point into the flow.

He's right about it.

It aligns with this model here as well.

When it comes to the work you and I do, which is around helping people be their most brilliant selves and unearthing their inner brilliance, you know, we both do that work.

A book that I just love is by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

Mm.

And just the fact that the word optimal experience is in the subtitle, which says you and I are allowed to have optimal experiences.

I got more done in less time.

I feel great." And then when I read the book, the, the book is called Flow, and what's interesting is this is before, like, AI was a pop culture thing, right?

Mm-hmm.

Mihaly wrote this when he's like, "I have discovered something." 'Cause he said, "It's weird the way you talk to high performers in different disciplines, like athletes, and artists, and writers, and at- you know, inventors.

And when you talk to these famous people about the state they go into to do the thing that makes them famous, they describe it in very similar terms even though what they do is actually a very different activity." He said, "There's something to that, because the thing they share is a brain." So when he did his ul- research, at the end of it, he wrote the book, and he called it Flow.

And he said the greatest thing.

He said, "Everybody I talked to had their own words for this.