Before we dive in here— let’s be clear about the three basic types of Flow.
1. INDIVIDUAL FLOW STATES: These are temporary peak states where you explore and channel more of your genius. All world class creativity, performance, and leadership come from Flow States.
2. COLLECTIVE/GROUP FLOW STATES: This is where everyone’s in their own individual flow state plus in a group flow state
3. UNIFIED-ONENESS CONSCIOUSNESS a.k.a. FLOW-CONSCIOUSNESS — is the higher levels of awareness you can be in all the time.
Here we’re going to focus on Flow States.
“The test of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.”
FLOW IS A HUGE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
The most progressive organizations on the planet know this. Elite sectors of Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and US DOD like the Navy SEALS — are investing in Flow Research to reach increasingly new levels of innovation, performance and ROI.
Why? Because our Flow States are our keys to our greatness.
It’s no coincidence — because…
WE’RE HARDWIRED TO LEARN and GROW
“We must be learning if we are to feel fully alive, and when life, or love, becomes too predictable and it seems like there is little left to learn, we become restless — a protest, perhaps, of the plastic brain when it can no longer perform its essential task.”
FLOW STATES ARE HOW WE CHANNEL AND GROW OUR GENIUS.
Flow States are often described as a mental state, but they’re actually a total bodymind experience. When you’re in a Flow State — you feel on your game: mentally, emotionally, physically. You’re operating at way higher levels of awareness and energy. It’s no wonder all world class creativity, performance and leadership come from Flow States.
Flow States infuse us with the most powerful superhero confidence, creativity, and performance enhancers our bodyminds make. We feel so beyond incredibly good — our soul smiles.
This is also no coincidence. Flow States are highly elevated states of consciousness with brainwave patterns like the most highly regarded transcendent states — you know the ones that the most dedicated spiritual seekers used to mediate for 10,000 hours to get to? They’re scientifically classified as one of four types of Ecstatic States: Contemplative States, Flow States, Mystical States, Psychedelic States (Kotler & Wheal, Stealing Fire).
‘Kamizawa” — you know this Japanese term Seth Godin refers to in his book, The Icarius Deception? ‘Kamiwaza’ is roughly translated as — the human experience of being godlike.The unique mix of hormones and neurotransmitters that flood our system in Flow States — is our natural ‘Kamizawa’ elixir!
Flow States are one of our most profound keys to self-actualization and how we explore the higher realms of our potentials. They naturally connect us to the parts of ourselves where we’re deeply motivated at our core — to access more of our genius and create even better versions of our best work.
FLOW STATES — MOTIVATION AND BEYOND
Beyond basic survival motivation, there are 3 types of Motivation. Most people are familiar with the first two here:
EXTERNAL/EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION—
is summed up in the metaphor of the carrot and the stick which comes from behavior modification psychology and behaviorist learning theory. Performance is encouraged through behavioural conditioning with a reward/punishment system.
INTERNAL/INTRINSIC MOTIVATION—
is our inner drive to be, do, have, and create what matters most. Performance is encouraged by developing, expressing and sharing our genius, making a difference in the lives of others, and our planet.
Daniel Pink in his best-selling book on motivation — Drive, talked about three main keys to intrinsic motivation:
1. Autonomy — is valuing self-direction. We want to direct our own lives — decide what we do, when we do it, with who and when.
2. Mastery — is valuing being on the path of self-actualization. Continually exploring our potentials and possibilities — becoming increasingly more amazing versions of ourselves.
3. Purpose — is valuing the greater good. Feeling like we are part of something greater than ourselves and contributing to making our world a better place.
Flow States are our autonomy, mastery and purpose in action.
Now here’s where things get even more interesting...
The Latin word for motivation is ‘motivus’ — a moving cause.
And this shows up in the third type of motivation in a super cool way…
3. EMERGENT MOTIVATION (BEING IN THE ZONE)—
this is the Flow State experience where we’re engaged with every cell of our being. Performance is encouraged in real time by actually being in the process of discovering more of our potentials in a play-by-play way— “our presence in action” (this is one way I describe Flow States).
The pre-eminent psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, who coined the term “Flow’ in the 70’s, and then the term ‘emergent motivation’ to describe its essence (Csikszentmihályi & Nakamura, The Concept of Flow).
The direction of the Flow State experience and our compelling desire to explore it further is formed by being fully engaged — interacting with our immediate environment.
Our emerging motivation forms new immediate goals on-the-go. It’s the dynamic series of decisions we make as we’re in the process of discovery, learning, growing — with the seamless perfection of each action leading to the next — and the whole of each moment is greater than the sum of its parts.
It’s no wonder the widely cited 10 year McKinsey study on productivity found Top Executives 5 times more productive in Flow. Time wise this means 1 day working in Flow = 5 days working the old way or ‘normal’ way.
BEING IN A FLOW STATE OR IN THE ZONE — IS KEY TO LEVERAGING OUR GENIUS, ENERGY AND TIME
Since Flow States are our well-springs of creativity, performance, motivation, inspiration, innovation, productivity, and happiness—they exponentially increase ROI across the board.
This is true for business bottom lines and for us personally. The more time we are in Flow States — the more we exponentially up our inner and outer game — and benefit from the time and mental — emotional — physical — energy we invest.
THE ZONE OF ACCELERATED LEARNING and GROWTH
Almost 100 years ago the Russian psychologist and learning theorist Lev Vygotsky introduced The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) between 1924–1934.
He specialized in the interaction between learning and development. The ZPD was his representation of the optimal learning-development-performance strategy. It became a revolutionary development in education. Vygotsky described the ZPD as:
“...the distance between the actual development level and the potential development level…it defines the functions that are in the process of maturation.”
Now one of the conditions and triggers of Flow States is an optimal balance between goal achievement and skill development — so you’re playing full out — fully engaged with every fiber of your being. This is where the immediate challenge stretches your existing skills to the optimal amount — so it’s not too hard (get anxious) or too easy (get bored).
This is my rendition of Csikszentmihályi’s diagram showing the Flow Channel as this optimal balance, in his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.
And interestingly, current Flow State research pegs the optimal balance of goal achievement and skill development at 4% (Steven Kotler, The Rise of Superman).
So if we superimpose the ZPD model on this Optimal 4% — it looks like this:
Since we’re hardwired to learn and grow—
and our Flow States are at the heart of accelerated learning and growth —
WE’RE HARD WIRED TO FLOW!
YOU KNOW YOUR TIME, ENERGY, AND FREEDOM ARE PRICELESS.
FLOW STATES make everything easier, extraordinary, fun, and fulfilling.
This is why creativity, productivity, performance, and profit skyrocket.
BEING IN THE ZONE FUELS MASSIVE PRESENCE, HAPPINESS, GROWTH, RESULTS, AND IMPACT. PERIOD.
I hope this dive into the Secret Advantages of Flow— helps you discover more of your brilliance — and experience more of the wildly successful business and life you’ve been dreaming of!
Want to learn more? Watch my free video training: Get Your High Performance, Flow & Fearless Soul on Speed Dial
