Flow and the richer life

Flow? Screen Shot 2016-02-11 at 1.39.03 PM

I first heard about the concept nearly 20 years ago from a friend. A Hungarian psych researcher had observed what he felt is a repeatable process of optimizing our life experiences. His name is now part of the lore of excellence, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

Many were AMUSED to find that sex is a reference for understanding how flow works as an unrestrained acceptance of what we desire. Csikszentmihalyi called it the autotelic experience: auto, meaning self and telos meaning goal are its lingual roots.

Flow activities are those where we are able to perform at our peak ability. He wrote: “Surgeons speak of their work: ‘It is so enjoyable that I would do it even if i didn’t have to.'” This is no J-O-B. The personal reward of the effort is mainly in the doing.

Fast forward 20 years, and add to Csikszentmihalyi’s work a bit of post-psychodelic awareness among high IQ individuals. Their sense of the ‘expansive possible’ was elevated far beyond previous boundaries of all sorts–demographic, geographic, spatial, energetic. This brought forth a business related marker for hyper-growth, Steven Kotler’s idea of the MTP, a massive transformational purpose.

We can point to Bill Gates’ DESIRE for a computer on every desk and Steve Jobs’ PASSION for developing at first a ‘bicycle for the mind’ and then changes in how to DOMINATE another 3 industrial categories would operate; music, telephones and television. Currently we can observe how Elon Musk’s three businesses Tesla, SpaceX and Solar Cities converge in their profit catching and engineering crossovers so Elon can reach his MTP of INHABITING Mars.

Now, thanks to the work of several hungry individuals namely, Steven Kotler and Peter Diamandis, flow principles are being further assessed and tracked. They have made it possible to try flow out for little or nothing to see what we think and feel about our possibilities.

It may be interesting that flow has yet to be APPLIED in a serious way to such mundane tasks as governance and political decision-making, but it doesn’t take long to realize why sports and moneymaking have been the most receptive paths for testing flow.

The batwing suits worn by freefall athletes and Laird Hamilton’s hydrofoil surfboard are just the beginning in flow sports. In their book “Bold”, Diamandis and Kotler clearly lay out both the principles of exponential business growth and the “how to” of doing so. These just scratch the surface of the potential, according to Steven Kotler. And he has invested a lot of money to demonstrate some next possibilities.

It may be enough to know that flow lives in opposition to mediocrity, but those who practice and ACTIVATE flow are oblivious to this.

They’re simply too busy, having fun, living to the max.

You can see more here–and get your free Flow Profile.
http://www.flowgenomeproject.com