I looked at upstart entrepreneurs Larry
Page Jeff Bezos Elon Musk people who had
built world-changing and possible
people who score off the charts highest
in the world for overall life
satisfaction and well-being are the
people with the most flow in their lives
we are able for the very first time to
peer under the hood of flow we can see
where it’s coming from flow states are
hackable
we’re just using a small portion of our
brain say 10% so ultimate performance
aka flow must be the full brain on
overdrive right turns out we actually
had it exactly backwards what does it
take to do the impossible what does it
take to achieve paradigm-shifting never
seen before breakthroughs consistently I
focused on those maverick innovators who
turn science fiction ideas into science
fact technology did the impossible of
literally dreaming up the future so what
I discovered in all these domains is
that it doesn’t actually matter where
you look you could be talking about the
action-adventure sport athletes you can
be talking about business tycoons you
can be talking about technologists or
artists it doesn’t matter every domain
you find ultimate human performance has
the exact same signature if this state
of consciousness known to researchers as
Flo is a technical term as I mentioned
earlier it is technically defined as an
optimal state of consciousness one word
feel our best and we perform our best
more specifically it refers to those
moments of rapt attention and total
absorption it’s so focused on the task
at hand everything else just disappears
action and awareness will start to merge
your sense of self will vanish time will
dilate which is a fancy way of saying it
passes strange
so sometimes occasionally it’ll slow
down you get that freeze-frame effect
for me Danny we’ve been in a car crash
and more frequently it speeds up and
five hours go by in like five minutes
and throughout all aspects of
performance both mental and physical go
through the roof float is definable and
because it is definable it is measurable
so we have extremely well validated
psychometric instruments to measure flow
at this point flow is universal it shows
up in everyone everywhere provided
certain initial conditions are met in
the vast majority tens of thousands of
people said you know when I’m at my best
I’m in this state and every idea every
action every decision flows seamlessly
perfectly effortlessly from the last
we’re just using a small portion of our
brain say 10% so ultimate performance
aka flow must be the full brain on
overdrive right in flow we’re not using
more of the brain we’re actually using
less of the brain the technical term for
this is transient meaning temporary
hypofrontality used to slow down the
shutdown to deactivate and frontality is
the prefrontal cortex this is an
extremely powerful part of your brain in
flow this portion of the brain shuts
down it’s actually an efficiency
exchange the brain is trading energy it
needs for attention and it’s shutting
down non-critical structures when it
shuts down the prefrontal cortex all
kinds of crazy things happen why does
time pass so strangely in a flow state
for example time it turns out was
calculated all over the prefrontal
cortex and as parts of it wink out and
no longer separate past present and
future
we’re plunged into a state researchers
talk about as the daemon now now the
deep now has a huge impact the
performance you think about most of your
fears most of your anxieties very few of
them are in the right here right now
they’re usually horrible things that
happen the past that we’d like to avoid
have me again in the present or they’re
scary things that might maybe could
happen in the future when we end up in
the deep now when time gets shut down
the flow state anxiety disappears your
stress hormones flood out of your system
the nervous system actually recess at
this point
same thing happens to your sense of self
so self is actually a network it’s a
bunch of different structures and the
prefrontal cortex that are linked
together and like any network as parts
of it start to wink out the network
collapses as a result our since itself
disappears again huge impact on
performance when your sense of self
disappears your inner critic that
nagging always on to feed us voice in
your head your inner Woody Allen inflow
woody get silent
so we experienced this as liberation as
freedom we are actually getting out of
our own way literally all right as a
result risk-taking goes up creativity
because you’re no longer doubting every
one of your neat ideas goes up what we
have discovered is that flow states have
triggers these are preconditions that
lead to more flow there are 20 of them
in total I’m going to talk about all
them in a second but the first thing you
need to know is the most obvious flow
follows focus it can only show up when
all of our attention is focused in the
right here though right now so that’s
what most of these triggers do they
drive attention into the nap for example
the first of the individual triggers
passion we hear a lot about passion
these days it’s one of these great buzz
words very mystical the only reason
passion matters is we pay more attention
to those things we believe in we drives
flow and flow drives performance risk
why did action-adventure sport athletes
experienced just spike in the 1990s
because risk levels and action-adventure
sports started going through the roof
and risk drives focus drives flow so a
really important thing to know about
these flow triggers is not only do they
exist they’re actually really easy to
work with the vast majority of people
find flow doing knowledge work using
their brain being creative architecture
coding writing we know that flow in the
Arts and Technology science accounts for
significant progress major paradigm
shifts usually a flow state of the heart
in business we have some of the most
compelling data some McKinsey the global
consultancy did a ten-year study and
they found that top executives and flow
are five times more productive than out
of flow five times more productive is
500% more productive means you could go
to work on Monday take Tuesday through
Friday off and get as much done as your
steady-state Pearce interestingly two
days a week and flow you are a foul
percent more productive than the
competition in flow we also get a huge
boost in neural chemistry so neural
chemicals are literally nothing fancier
than signaling molecules is one of the
ways brain talks to itself and talk to
the body and if you really want to
understand why flow allows us to do the
impossible
understanding these neural chemicals is
key now all five of them
amplified performance they boost
physical performance they will do
everything from increased strength to
deaden pain to amplifying muscle
reaction time so besides being
performance enhancing chemicals the five
chemicals that show up and flow our
pleasure drugs in fact the five most
potent pleasure drugs the brain can
produce flow is the only time it appears
that we get all five at once which is
why flow is the most addictive state on
earth move into flow we take in more
information per second that’s a data
acquisition goes up we pay more
attention to that information
so salience goes up ask yourself what
kinds of impossible Grand Challenges
would you guys go after would you solve
in your own life would you try to solve
in the world if you could be 500 percent
more productive you could be 600 percent
more creative if you could cut learning
times in half this is exactly what is
available to each and every one of you
today but what you choose to do this this information is entirely up to you
Page Jeff Bezos Elon Musk people who had
built world-changing and possible
people who score off the charts highest
in the world for overall life
satisfaction and well-being are the
people with the most flow in their lives
we are able for the very first time to
peer under the hood of flow we can see
where it’s coming from flow states are
hackable
we’re just using a small portion of our
brain say 10% so ultimate performance
aka flow must be the full brain on
overdrive right turns out we actually
had it exactly backwards what does it
take to do the impossible what does it
take to achieve paradigm-shifting never
seen before breakthroughs consistently I
focused on those maverick innovators who
turn science fiction ideas into science
fact technology did the impossible of
literally dreaming up the future so what
I discovered in all these domains is
that it doesn’t actually matter where
you look you could be talking about the
action-adventure sport athletes you can
be talking about business tycoons you
can be talking about technologists or
artists it doesn’t matter every domain
you find ultimate human performance has
the exact same signature if this state
of consciousness known to researchers as
Flo is a technical term as I mentioned
earlier it is technically defined as an
optimal state of consciousness one word
feel our best and we perform our best
more specifically it refers to those
moments of rapt attention and total
absorption it’s so focused on the task
at hand everything else just disappears
action and awareness will start to merge
your sense of self will vanish time will
dilate which is a fancy way of saying it
passes strange
so sometimes occasionally it’ll slow
down you get that freeze-frame effect
for me Danny we’ve been in a car crash
and more frequently it speeds up and
five hours go by in like five minutes
and throughout all aspects of
performance both mental and physical go
through the roof float is definable and
because it is definable it is measurable
so we have extremely well validated
psychometric instruments to measure flow
at this point flow is universal it shows
up in everyone everywhere provided
certain initial conditions are met in
the vast majority tens of thousands of
people said you know when I’m at my best
I’m in this state and every idea every
action every decision flows seamlessly
perfectly effortlessly from the last
we’re just using a small portion of our
brain say 10% so ultimate performance
aka flow must be the full brain on
overdrive right in flow we’re not using
more of the brain we’re actually using
less of the brain the technical term for
this is transient meaning temporary
hypofrontality used to slow down the
shutdown to deactivate and frontality is
the prefrontal cortex this is an
extremely powerful part of your brain in
flow this portion of the brain shuts
down it’s actually an efficiency
exchange the brain is trading energy it
needs for attention and it’s shutting
down non-critical structures when it
shuts down the prefrontal cortex all
kinds of crazy things happen why does
time pass so strangely in a flow state
for example time it turns out was
calculated all over the prefrontal
cortex and as parts of it wink out and
no longer separate past present and
future
we’re plunged into a state researchers
talk about as the daemon now now the
deep now has a huge impact the
performance you think about most of your
fears most of your anxieties very few of
them are in the right here right now
they’re usually horrible things that
happen the past that we’d like to avoid
have me again in the present or they’re
scary things that might maybe could
happen in the future when we end up in
the deep now when time gets shut down
the flow state anxiety disappears your
stress hormones flood out of your system
the nervous system actually recess at
this point
same thing happens to your sense of self
so self is actually a network it’s a
bunch of different structures and the
prefrontal cortex that are linked
together and like any network as parts
of it start to wink out the network
collapses as a result our since itself
disappears again huge impact on
performance when your sense of self
disappears your inner critic that
nagging always on to feed us voice in
your head your inner Woody Allen inflow
woody get silent
so we experienced this as liberation as
freedom we are actually getting out of
our own way literally all right as a
result risk-taking goes up creativity
because you’re no longer doubting every
one of your neat ideas goes up what we
have discovered is that flow states have
triggers these are preconditions that
lead to more flow there are 20 of them
in total I’m going to talk about all
them in a second but the first thing you
need to know is the most obvious flow
follows focus it can only show up when
all of our attention is focused in the
right here though right now so that’s
what most of these triggers do they
drive attention into the nap for example
the first of the individual triggers
passion we hear a lot about passion
these days it’s one of these great buzz
words very mystical the only reason
passion matters is we pay more attention
to those things we believe in we drives
flow and flow drives performance risk
why did action-adventure sport athletes
experienced just spike in the 1990s
because risk levels and action-adventure
sports started going through the roof
and risk drives focus drives flow so a
really important thing to know about
these flow triggers is not only do they
exist they’re actually really easy to
work with the vast majority of people
find flow doing knowledge work using
their brain being creative architecture
coding writing we know that flow in the
Arts and Technology science accounts for
significant progress major paradigm
shifts usually a flow state of the heart
in business we have some of the most
compelling data some McKinsey the global
consultancy did a ten-year study and
they found that top executives and flow
are five times more productive than out
of flow five times more productive is
500% more productive means you could go
to work on Monday take Tuesday through
Friday off and get as much done as your
steady-state Pearce interestingly two
days a week and flow you are a foul
percent more productive than the
competition in flow we also get a huge
boost in neural chemistry so neural
chemicals are literally nothing fancier
than signaling molecules is one of the
ways brain talks to itself and talk to
the body and if you really want to
understand why flow allows us to do the
impossible
understanding these neural chemicals is
key now all five of them
amplified performance they boost
physical performance they will do
everything from increased strength to
deaden pain to amplifying muscle
reaction time so besides being
performance enhancing chemicals the five
chemicals that show up and flow our
pleasure drugs in fact the five most
potent pleasure drugs the brain can
produce flow is the only time it appears
that we get all five at once which is
why flow is the most addictive state on
earth move into flow we take in more
information per second that’s a data
acquisition goes up we pay more
attention to that information
so salience goes up ask yourself what
kinds of impossible Grand Challenges
would you guys go after would you solve
in your own life would you try to solve
in the world if you could be 500 percent
more productive you could be 600 percent
more creative if you could cut learning
times in half this is exactly what is
available to each and every one of you
today but what you choose to do this this information is entirely up to you
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