There have been many times in my life where I have procrastinated on work deliverables up to the point of near disaster, only to end up producing an amazing work product as an end result. The frenzied rush and heightened sense of necessary focus, coupled with high-stakes consequences of not getting the job done in time for the deadline raised my heart rate, triggered the fight or flight response and chemically produced an adrenaline hit to my brain which put me in a state of complete concentration on the job at hand. When I was a software engineer I used to experience this often. I can remember one particular situation when I was working on a big project for a bank here in Texas and I had to write a months worth of code in a week. I can remember the feeling of hopelessness, trepidation and anxiety as I stared down this deliverable and understood that the only way to get this done was to just start writing code, line after line. I remember about mid-week and thousands of lines of code to still write, I woke up in the middle of the night, logged into my computer and for 5 hours running on pure adrenaline (and I guess caffeine) wrote some of the best software that I have ever written. I remember the feeling of 100% focus coupled with a sense of urgency from the deadline created a pressure that pushed me to tap into this mental energy and rhythm with the keyboard that melded mind and fingers into a work product that to this day am extremely proud of. For years, I’ve chased that feeling, that rush and that sensation of energy that instigated this experience only to find myself falling short time and time again. Some people call this feeling “The Zone”, if you are a runner you may have experienced what is called the “Runners High” 3/4 of the way into a long run after the pain subsides and you start to feel elated and indestructible. Others call it beast mode, the forever box or something else. I call it “Flow” and it has become one of the topics at the forefront of my life as I am in a relentless pursuit of creating states of consciousness that lead to high performance in my day to day activities.
Mihayi Csikszentmihayli who is considered to be the God father of flow research science says “The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive and relaxing times … The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile”. So how do we build the muscle to tap into these states of consciousness often? Make no mistake the feeling of flow is elusive and fleeting. There is the gravity of our daily routines and “life” that makes concentration and focus really hard. There are our jobs which require constant context shifting minute to minute. There is also the lack of intrinsic motivation in our day to day that makes it hard to conjure up the energy and commitment to put focus on something. However, if we were to define a formula to give us a better chance to find flow, what would it be? Steven Kotler, author and a passionate advocate on the topic of peak performance and flow, talks about “Habits of Ferocity” and how to cultivate a life of flow which requires focus. He suggests an exercise of turning curiosity into passion and he provides a formulaic approach to identifying your curiosities and developing intersections to start exercising passions around them. The hypothesis is when we engage in things we are passionate we will naturally be more inclined to create focus necessary for flow.
Finding Your Intersections
In summary it goes something like this. Write down 15 – 25 things that you are curious about. You need 15 – 25 to get a good diverse set of topics. The more breadth you have in your topics the more intersections will naturally arise. The goal is to not only state the obvious, but rather document those subjects that you have surfaced some form of interest in and want to spend more time developing competency or experience in them. For example here is a table of my list :
| Find Your Passion | |
| 25 Things I’m Curious About | Description |
| Leadership (Executive Performance) | Leadership, Execution, Strategy, Effective Relationships, Marketing |
| Flow | High-Performance, Grit, Ferocity and Productivity, Creativity |
| Technology | DevOps, Software Engineering, Platform Thinking, Technology Trends, Banking / FinTech |
| Christianity | Faith, GOD, Catholicism, Church, Jesus, Christianity |
| Philosophy | Philosophers, Plato, Stoicism, Critical reasoning and logic |
| Marriage Growth / (Being a Great Husband) | Be the best husband I can for Jessica. |
| Fatherhood | Kids Role Model, Kids Traditions, Leadership in the family, presence, etc |
| Making Music | Guitar, Song-Writing, Playing with my kids, showing new music to people. Sharing. |
| Outdoors | Camping, hiking, travel, gear, technical knowledge of outdoors, trail running, kayaking, etc. |
| Writing (Fiction, Non-Fiction, Blogs, etc) | Interested in Journalism and Writing and a way to communicate. Fascinated by writing. Want to become a better writer |
| Reading Books, Articles, etc | Love to read books. All kinds of books : Fiction, non-fiction, Stephen King, Political, Philosophy, etc. |
| Physical Exercise | Running, biking, sports, bliss junkie, physical activity |
| Finances / Economy / Market | Money, investments, savings, networth, business growth |
| Government / Politics | How government works? Who’s in power? Behind the scenes deal making? American Politics |
| Cooking / Food | Appreciation for food, discover of new foods, the act of cooking |
| Vegetarian / Vegan Lifestyle | Research and live a vegetarian and Vegan lifestyle. |
| Heritage (Hispanic Heritage) | Huasteca, Mexico, Family Tree, Geneology |
| Hunting | Deer Hunting, The Process of the Hunt, Bow, The Technical Details and nuances of hunting |
| Influencers On Social Media | People we are voices of authority and have a lot of followers and are influencers |
| Real-Estate Business | Real-Estate Market. Jessica’s work. Interested in all of it. |
| Art (Any Kind Really) | Love Art : Movies, Physical Art, Music, Poetry, etc. I love all Art |
| Social Media Platforms (Features) | Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, GitHub, WordPress, Instagram, etc. |
| Public Speaking / Presenting | Getting in front of people and talking. Connecting and communicating with people. |
Once you have developed this list and really pushed yourself to discover your curiosities start to look for activities and opportunities to bring 2 or more of these curiosities into an intersecting activity that allows you to learn, practice or engage in these topics. The key here is the more intersections you have the more likely you will develop a passion which will give you a sense of purpose and motivation, ultimately leading you to prioritize your time to focus on these passions. Focus is the foundation of getting into constant states of flow and the more passion the more chances you have for flow. Passion as Steven Kotler says is a “super power that is at the intersection of great things”.
Example of my intersections :
| Intersection Ideas | |
| Public Speaking / Flow / Leadership | Do Presentations on Flow (i.e. Makers X Presentation) / TED Talk for MBA / PodCast Recording |
| Writing / Flow / Social Media | Blog about Flow, Write About Flow Often, Journal About Flow, Document Flow States |
| Texas / Outdoors / Hunting / Fatherhood | Hit all the Parks in Texas (Make a list and go visit), Get a lease with my kids in Texas, camp more |
| Influencers / Politics | Follow the right leaders and influencers on Social Media (Twitter, Blogs, etc) |
| Texas-SA / Real-Estate | Follow and stay educated about Texas Real-estate data. Look into more buying real-estate. |
| Heritage / Cooking | Find out recipes from San Luis Potosi |
| Leadership (Executive) / Reading | Read as much as I can to stay on top of Executive Thought Leadership. |
| Music / Writing / Social media | Write Songs (Personal and Original Songs), share with social media |
| Leadership (Executive) / Writing / Social Media | Update Resume for Executive Leadership, Market on Social Media and Apply for other jobs |
| Heritage / Travel | Take and Plan a trip to Mexico to get in more touch with my genetic roots. |
Why does it matter?
I’ve given several Ted talks on this topic over the last year and every time after my talks I’ve had a lot of interest from people who are extremely curious about my own approach to flow. As you see my list of curiosities, you can see that I have a pretty broad range of interests (some times even contradictory, vegetarian and hunting?) which represents the busy and diverse nature of my life. I don’t pretend to be an expert on this topic, however I am passionate about it because I have seen the difference in my work when I am in flow vs. when I’m not. In my line of business, productivity is extremely important to make significant organization transformation. So aside from the personal benefit from performing at your peak level, there are also significant organization benefits to having a workforce that understands flow and can increase their collective performance.
According to a 10-year study the McKinsey Group performed, top executives at large companies have reported being 5-times more productive in flow states. If you could increase the amount of time your workforce is in flow by 20%, your workplace productivity could double. Just think about that for a second. Even organizations that already have great financial performance could not only be more productive but enhance creativity of the collective workforce as well. As noted in recruitloop.com, 52% of US workers are present but NOT ENGAGED OR INSPIRED at work. In addition to that stat, only 30% are ENGAGED AND INSPIRED, while a staggering 18% of US workers are ACTIVELY DISENGAGED. Sit with that one for a bit. 18 out of 100 people are actively disengaged at your organization. This is why understanding flow and the science behind how our brains work when we are in peak performance should matter to you.
I’m in constant search the holy grail of peak performance. To me there is a very deep visceral connection between my quality of life and my ability to have purposeful experiences through deep focus. Although time is linear, the experiences that give us perspective in life are not and there will be natural opportunities for flow and there will be times when performance seems like a “nice to have”. Stay engaged, find your intersections so you can do things you are passionate about and never give up the “Relentless Pursuit of Flow”.
-Abe
References :
https://www.inc.com/will-yakowicz/how-to-be-5-times-more-productive.html
Bluescoder I/O 
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