Steven Kotler has made a massive contribution to society with his FLOW work. With his combination of FLOW chasing, FLOW studying, being a science writer, and a best selling author, he is sharing and spreading valuable knowledge. Thank you Steven Kotler! Thanks to Talks at Google for posting and sharing these superb talks.
Steven Kotler, you are a rock star! In 1985, I stumbled on FLOW while acting onstage. An accident triggered my experience of FLOW. It was such a euphoric state and I performed at a level I'd never experienced as an actor that I went looking for how to create it on purpose. I ended up creating a method to transform stage fright and fear of public speaking. For 30 years now I have facilitated this method in Houston. It was based only on my intuition and training as an actor and meditator with no science to back it up. Then you came along and gave me all the science to explain what I have been doing for so long by intuition. I am full of gratitude and respect for your research, writing and speaking. Thank you! PS. I love your low grade FLOW state morning ritual. I will be doing it tomorrow morning.
HI David - I just now saw your comment. The best I have described my Sandra Zimmer Method is in an article I wrote for Presentation-guru.com. It's at www.presentation-guru.com/how-to-overcome-your-fear-of-public-speaking-in-6-mostly-easy-steps/ Thanks for your interest!
The happiest people spend much time in a state of flow - the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Mindfulness has been shown to decrease the brains Default Mode Network similiarly to what happens in a flow state. However, Transcendental Meditation has been shown to increase the overall activation of the Default Mode Network in practitioners. Is it valid to assume that Trascendental Meditation is not optimal for flow state?
Loved the talk! Lots of beautiful insights and practical tools. I have a question. What’s the trade-off we make by choosing flow? Not being pessimistic but trying to understand the flip side.
As I understand it from the last talk, you're trading executive function (should I be doing what I'm doing?) for task specific function. Basically, you stop caring why and focus exclusively on how.
champion can loose one race,but gets to recover quickly own way towards good performance,while new athletes often transform a mistake into permanent tragedy
for me, it wasn't a rush. When I've experienced "flow", it's been exciting, you might say, but in a very distinct manner: it's calming. When I hit the real thing, it's actually... hmmm... one might say almost _peaceful._
Why the Flow Channel is illogical, and Kotler is a con man. On the surface, the graphical representation of the flow channel is simple to understand. When you arrange a demand/skill match, flow happens. For any task, the problem is that although demand moves up or down dependent upon the exigencies of the moment, skill should be relatively stable during or within the performance, and only change, and for the most part gradually between performances. Thus, one may accomplish a task that from moment to moment varies in demand, but the skills brought to that task are the same regardless of demand. What this means is that for any one-performance set, skill is not a variable, but a constant. That is, one cannot adjust skill against demand during performance because skill can only change negligibly during performance, or in other words does not move. Thus, for performance that requires any skill set, the only variable that can be manipulated is demand. For moment to moment behavior the adjustable variable that elicits flow is demand and demand alone. But that leaves us with figuring out what demand exactly is. A demand may be defined as simple response-outcome contingency. Thus, if you do X, Y will occur or not occur. It is thus inferred that demand entails a fully predictable means-end relationship or expectancy. But the inference that the act-outcome expectancy is always fully predictable is not true. Although a response-outcome is fully predictable when skill overmatches demand, as demand rises to match and surpass skill, uncertainty in the prediction of a performance outcome also rises. At first, the uncertainty is positive, and reaches its highest level when a skill matches the level of demand. This represents a ‘touch and go’ experience wherein every move most likely will result in a positive outcome in a calm or non-stressed state. It is here that many individuals report euphoric flow like states. Passing that, the moment-to-moment uncertainty of a bad outcome increases, along with a corresponding rise in tension and anxiety. Momentary positive uncertainty as a logical function of the moment to moment variance occurring when demand matches skill does not translate into a predictor for flow, and is ignored in Csikszentmihalyi’s model because uncertainty by implication does not elicit affect. Rather, affect is imputed to metaphorical concepts of immersion, involvement, and focused attention that are not grounded to any specific neurological processes. However, the fact that act-outcome discrepancy in relaxed states alone has been correlated with specific neuro-chemical changes in the brain that map to euphoric, involved, timeless , or immersive states, namely the co-activation of dopamine and opioid systems due to continuous positive act/outcome discrepancy and relaxation, narrows the cause of flow to abstract elements of perception rather than metaphorical aspects of performance. These abstract perceptual elements denote information and can easily be defined and be reliably mapped to behavior. A final perceptual aspect of demand that correlates with the elicitation of dopamine is the importance of the result or goal of behavior. Specifically, dopaminergic systems are activated by the in tandem perception of discrepancy and the predicted utility or value of result of a response contingency. The flow model maps behavior to demand and skill, but not only is skill fixed, so is the importance of the goal state that predicates demand. However, the relative importance of the goal state correlates with the intensity of affect. For example, representing a task that matches his skills, a rock climber calmly ascending a difficult cliff would be euphoric if the moment to moment result was high, namely avoiding a fatal fall, but would be far less so if he was attached to a tether, and would suffer only an injury to his pride is he were to slip. Finally, the flow experience correlates also with a state of relaxation and the concomitant activation of opioid systems along with a dopamine induced arousal state that together impart a feeling of euphoria, which would also be predicted as choices in flow are singular and clear and therefore avoid perseverative cognition. It is the sense of relaxation induced pleasure and a feeling of attentive arousal that constitutes the flow experience. I offer a more detailed theoretical explanation in pp. 47-52, and pp 82-86 of my open source book on the neuroscience of resting states, ‘The Book of Rest’, linked below. The Psychology of Rest www.scribd.com/doc/284056765/The-Book-of-Rest-The-Odd-Psychology-of-Doing-Nothing
It’s hard to follow what you’re saying when your initial premise is so disagreeable and the arguments you make as don’t make sense because none of them directly address anything he’s said or directly follow from your premise and the ideas you talk about are all things said by Steven. In fact, it’s weird to position yourself against him like this when he would in fact agree with most of what you are saying. You both can mutually exist.
![[ ออกกอง ] วัยหนุ่ม 2544 โลกหลังลูกกรง..ทัวร์กองถ่ายหนังใน "คุกของจริง" | JUSTดูIT.](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vB--aOkZCpw/mqdefault.jpg)
Steven Kotler has made a massive contribution to society with his FLOW work.
With his combination of FLOW chasing, FLOW studying, being a science writer, and a best selling author, he is sharing and spreading valuable knowledge.
Thank you Steven Kotler! Thanks to Talks at Google for posting and sharing these superb talks.
Steven Kotler, you are a rock star! In 1985, I stumbled on FLOW while acting onstage. An accident triggered my experience of FLOW. It was such a euphoric state and I performed at a level I'd never experienced as an actor that I went looking for how to create it on purpose. I ended up creating a method to transform stage fright and fear of public speaking. For 30 years now I have facilitated this method in Houston. It was based only on my intuition and training as an actor and meditator with no science to back it up. Then you came along and gave me all the science to explain what I have been doing for so long by intuition. I am full of gratitude and respect for your research, writing and speaking. Thank you! PS. I love your low grade FLOW state morning ritual. I will be doing it tomorrow morning.
Care to share your method? I assume it revolves around flow.
HI David - I just now saw your comment. The best I have described my Sandra Zimmer Method is in an article I wrote for Presentation-guru.com. It's at www.presentation-guru.com/how-to-overcome-your-fear-of-public-speaking-in-6-mostly-easy-steps/ Thanks for your interest!
The happiest people spend much time in a state of flow - the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Meditate regularly. You will experience the mother of flow.
Mindfulness has been shown to decrease the brains Default Mode Network similiarly to what happens in a flow state.
However, Transcendental Meditation has been shown to increase the overall activation of the Default Mode Network in practitioners.
Is it valid to assume that Trascendental Meditation is not optimal for flow state?
Then ''trancendental meditation'' seems like an oxymoronic misnomer lol
This was a pretty interesting talk, I have been in flow state more than I thought I was. I'm heading over to his website to learn more about this.
Loved the talk! Lots of beautiful insights and practical tools. I have a question. What’s the trade-off we make by choosing flow? Not being pessimistic but trying to understand the flip side.
As I understand it from the last talk, you're trading executive function (should I be doing what I'm doing?) for task specific function. Basically, you stop caring why and focus exclusively on how.
champion can loose one race,but gets to recover quickly own way towards good performance,while new athletes often transform a mistake into permanent tragedy
I
im your biggest fan !! shout out from penang
....in every every case the SEEMINGLY IMPOSSIBLE....
43:00
Chick sent me high.
I would have loved to make a (bigger) contribution in the world. Sadly I couldn't.
My whole life is a flow
Flow is basically state of rush and excitement.
no
he clearly emphasizes in his book, FLOW IS NOT ADRENALINE.
for me, it wasn't a rush. When I've experienced "flow", it's been exciting, you might say, but in a very distinct manner: it's calming. When I hit the real thing, it's actually... hmmm... one might say almost _peaceful._
This kind of stuff seems like hype
Why the Flow Channel is illogical, and Kotler is a con man.
On the surface, the graphical representation of the flow channel is simple to understand. When you arrange a demand/skill match, flow happens. For any task, the problem is that although demand moves up or down dependent upon the exigencies of the moment, skill should be relatively stable during or within the performance, and only change, and for the most part gradually between performances. Thus, one may accomplish a task that from moment to moment varies in demand, but the skills brought to that task are the same regardless of demand. What this means is that for any one-performance set, skill is not a variable, but a constant. That is, one cannot adjust skill against demand during performance because skill can only change negligibly during performance, or in other words does not move. Thus, for performance that requires any skill set, the only variable that can be manipulated is demand. For moment to moment behavior the adjustable variable that elicits flow is demand and demand alone. But that leaves us with figuring out what demand exactly is.
A demand may be defined as simple response-outcome contingency. Thus, if you do X, Y will occur or not occur. It is thus inferred that demand entails a fully predictable means-end relationship or expectancy. But the inference that the act-outcome expectancy is always fully predictable is not true. Although a response-outcome is fully predictable when skill overmatches demand, as demand rises to match and surpass skill, uncertainty in the prediction of a performance outcome also rises. At first, the uncertainty is positive, and reaches its highest level when a skill matches the level of demand. This represents a ‘touch and go’ experience wherein every move most likely will result in a positive outcome in a calm or non-stressed state. It is here that many individuals report euphoric flow like states. Passing that, the moment-to-moment uncertainty of a bad outcome increases, along with a corresponding rise in tension and anxiety.
Momentary positive uncertainty as a logical function of the moment to moment variance occurring when demand matches skill does not translate into a predictor for flow, and is ignored in Csikszentmihalyi’s model because uncertainty by implication does not elicit affect. Rather, affect is imputed to metaphorical concepts of immersion, involvement, and focused attention that are not grounded to any specific neurological processes. However, the fact that act-outcome discrepancy in relaxed states alone has been correlated with specific neuro-chemical changes in the brain that map to euphoric, involved, timeless , or immersive states, namely the co-activation of dopamine and opioid systems due to continuous positive act/outcome discrepancy and relaxation, narrows the cause of flow to abstract elements of perception rather than metaphorical aspects of performance. These abstract perceptual elements denote information and can easily be defined and be reliably mapped to behavior.
A final perceptual aspect of demand that correlates with the elicitation of dopamine is the importance of the result or goal of behavior. Specifically, dopaminergic systems are activated by the in tandem perception of discrepancy and the predicted utility or value of result of a response contingency. The flow model maps behavior to demand and skill, but not only is skill fixed, so is the importance of the goal state that predicates demand. However, the relative importance of the goal state correlates with the intensity of affect. For example, representing a task that matches his skills, a rock climber calmly ascending a difficult cliff would be euphoric if the moment to moment result was high, namely avoiding a fatal fall, but would be far less so if he was attached to a tether, and would suffer only an injury to his pride is he were to slip. Finally, the flow experience correlates also with a state of relaxation and the concomitant activation of opioid systems along with a dopamine induced arousal state that together impart a feeling of euphoria, which would also be predicted as choices in flow are singular and clear and therefore avoid perseverative cognition. It is the sense of relaxation induced pleasure and a feeling of attentive arousal that constitutes the flow experience.
I offer a more detailed theoretical explanation in pp. 47-52, and pp 82-86 of my open source book on the neuroscience of resting states, ‘The Book of Rest’, linked below.
The Psychology of Rest
www.scribd.com/doc/284056765/The-Book-of-Rest-The-Odd-Psychology-of-Doing-Nothing
It’s hard to follow what you’re saying when your initial premise is so disagreeable and the arguments you make as don’t make sense because none of them directly address anything he’s said or directly follow from your premise and the ideas you talk about are all things said by Steven. In fact, it’s weird to position yourself against him like this when he would in fact agree with most of what you are saying. You both can mutually exist.
Steven is wrong about Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell theory has been scientifically prove.