Speaker 1: It's an emergent experience and as such, you know, we
Speaker 1: don't go from you know, zero to sixty. None of
Speaker 1: us go is from zero to sixty. People keep thinking
Speaker 1: about like dropping in to flow, like that's not happening.
Speaker 1: Flow is the merchant. You've got to build up the context.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today's episode is
Speaker 2: sponsored by Unlikely Collaborators. Their mission is to untangle the
Speaker 2: stories that hold us back as individuals, communities, nations, and
Speaker 2: humanity at large, using the Perception Box lens. They do
Speaker 2: this through storytelling, experiences, impact investments, and scientific research. Unlikely
Speaker 2: Collaborators the only way forward is inward. Later on in
Speaker 2: this episode, I'll talk a lot more about the perception
Speaker 2: box and how it relates to this episode, But right now,
Speaker 2: let me tell you about today's guest. Today, we welcome
Speaker 2: Oren Davis to the podcast. Or earned the first doctorate
Speaker 2: in positive psychology and is a self actualization engineer who
Speaker 2: enables people to do and be their best. As the
Speaker 2: principal investigator of the Quality of Life Labor, he conducts
Speaker 2: research on flow, creativity, hypnosis, and mentoring. Doctor Davis consults
Speaker 2: for companies from startups to multinationals on hiring strategies, culture innovation,
Speaker 2: and employee well being. He's the author of Team Flow,
Speaker 2: The Psychology of Optimal Collaboration. In this episode, I talked
Speaker 2: to Oron Davis about the new science of flow. A
Speaker 2: lot of people are familiar with the concept of flow,
Speaker 2: but according to Oran, the experience of it is not
Speaker 2: very common. We discussed Mihi Chick sent me Hi's work
Speaker 2: and how Orin is expanding the research of flow by
Speaker 2: studying it at a group level. He talks about how
Speaker 2: we can increase the chances of experiencing flow for both
Speaker 2: individuals and teams. We also touch on the topics of microflow, hypnosis, absorption,
Speaker 2: positive psychology, and of course, my favorite self actualization. It
Speaker 2: was really great fun chatting with Oran. I've known him
Speaker 2: for quite some time, and the field of psychology for
Speaker 2: some reason, doesn't have a lot of research on the
Speaker 2: science of flow. So it's really cool to see Orin
Speaker 2: doing a lot of really important research on this topic,
Speaker 2: and hopefully this chat will inspire other researchers to do
Speaker 2: more research on this really important aspect of human consciousness
Speaker 2: as well. So, without further ado, I bring you doctor
Speaker 2: Orrin Davis Oran. So great to have you on the
Speaker 2: Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, Scott.
Speaker 2: Good times, Yeah, very good times. And we haven't started yet,
Speaker 2: but I'm sure it'll be good times. You know. I
Speaker 2: have watched your career with all as you know, I
Speaker 2: first met you when you were a grad student of
Speaker 2: Mehai Chick sent me highs at Apa way back in
Speaker 2: like two thousand and six. What were you working on
Speaker 2: back then? What was your what was the topic of
Speaker 2: your dissertation?
Speaker 1: So I think it was nine we met okay okay
Speaker 1: at Apa Nyu. Yeah. Yeah, I was working on microflow
Speaker 1: at the time, and I think I was starting to
Speaker 1: get interested in CREA. I was working on creativity, I
Speaker 1: was working on mentoring. That was all related to Mike's
Speaker 1: work and jeans also because I mean Mike was my
Speaker 1: official advisor, but I also was very much like mentored
Speaker 1: by Ginakamora as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You so you studied with the legend of flow
Speaker 2: and I've carried on that torch in really big ways.
Speaker 2: Can you describe our listeners a little bit about what
Speaker 2: is the flow experience?
Speaker 1: Sure? So, have you ever gotten really engrossed in something
Speaker 1: that is kind of difficult, that is challenging, it really
Speaker 1: inspires you to push forward on it. You love just
Speaker 1: engaging in the act itself, Like whatever the activity is,
Speaker 1: you're really raring to do it. And when you look
Speaker 1: back on it afterwards, it feels like this absolute amazing experience,
Speaker 1: like you were totally zoomed in on it and it
Speaker 1: felt like you were executing it to the best of
Speaker 1: your ability. And that amazing experience is basically flow in
Speaker 1: a nutshell.
Speaker 2: It's a it's considered a peak experience, yes.
Speaker 1: One of the peak experiences. Yea, So people think it
Speaker 1: is the peak experience. I'm not sure it's I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that all like, not all peak experiences are flow,
Speaker 1: and not all flow is peak experience.
Speaker 2: But I agree with that. I very much agree with that.
Speaker 2: And then what do you think of his criteria that
Speaker 2: he put forth in his book Mihai and his book
Speaker 2: on Flow. He put forth various criteria for how's that
Speaker 2: stood up scientifically over the years?
Speaker 1: Hard to say, because I'll say something funny is that
Speaker 1: whenever you read Mike's work, it really is only sort
Speaker 1: of a snapshot of where his mind was at the time,
Speaker 1: and he's usually light years ahead of whatever piece just
Speaker 1: came out, so I think, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: things that we talked about back when I was a
Speaker 1: grad student was weather flow actually has the nine characteristics
Speaker 1: that he said. And the funny thing is I was
Speaker 1: sort of looking at the nine characteristics and trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how they go together, and he said to me,
Speaker 1: or you're being too dogmatic about the theory. I said,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, it's your theory exactly, so I'm telling you, like,
Speaker 1: don't be so dogmatic about the theory. It was always
Speaker 1: like that, and just advising me not to really, you know,
Speaker 1: hold too tightly to anything any idea, that there's nothing
Speaker 1: sacred that cannot be questioned in the world, in the
Speaker 1: realm of ideas. And it was a lot of fun
Speaker 1: actually studying with him and questioning everything, including his work
Speaker 1: and his ideas, and he encouraged me to do it.
Speaker 1: So the nine characteristics of flow, they nominally hold up,
Speaker 1: but most of it's been top down models, so it's
Speaker 1: sort of been like, well, we know that there's this experience,
Speaker 1: so what can we derive, but what kind of patterns
Speaker 1: can we see? But it's hard to find empirical underpinnings
Speaker 1: for that, And actually a model that I just presented
Speaker 1: suggests that maybe it's not really nine characteristics, but really
Speaker 1: that more than anything else, I think that the feedback
Speaker 1: aspect is important, and the autotellic aspect is important, and
Speaker 1: then the trance state that is the necessary but not
Speaker 1: sufficient aspect of flow that usually leads people to think
Speaker 1: of it as as a state of flow. That flow
Speaker 1: is actually some kind of state, it's not. There's something
Speaker 1: more than that. But the trance like aspect of flow
Speaker 1: is kind of really where people see that state part
Speaker 1: of it. And then there's you know, the feedback loops
Speaker 1: of the activity, the experienced structuring aspects of the activity
Speaker 1: built on top of it, as well as the intrinsic motivation,
Speaker 1: the autoteleic nature that makes the activity so enjoyable that
Speaker 1: you want to just engage in the activity for its
Speaker 1: own sake, you know. Like for example, I like to
Speaker 1: play chess, and you know I play. I play to play.
Speaker 1: I want to play a good game. You know, I
Speaker 1: obviously play to win, but you know we're to lose.
Speaker 1: If I played a good game, and especially if it
Speaker 1: was a hard game. You know, it feels great afterwards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the trance aspect is really interesting, especially in light
Speaker 2: of your other research program on hypnosis. I do want
Speaker 2: to know what the latest state of the science is
Speaker 2: on hypnosis. How do those two things overlap. Can you
Speaker 2: hypnotize someone to get into the flow state?
Speaker 1: Well, since flows out of state?
Speaker 2: No, oh, that's that's a very good point. Well, if
Speaker 2: it's not a state of consciousness, then what is it?
Speaker 1: So what I would say is that it's something more
Speaker 1: than a state of consciousness, because one of the things
Speaker 1: that we have not been able to do is actually
Speaker 1: differentiate between the different experiences of trance. Right, there's this
Speaker 1: there is this deep absorption that we have in so
Speaker 1: many different context Right. We have it in mindfulness, we
Speaker 1: have it in meditation. We also do have it without
Speaker 1: necessarily a flow experience, just being really really focused and
Speaker 1: intent on something, but without let's say, the intrinsic motivation
Speaker 1: or without something that is that really rewards us so
Speaker 1: that we feel is necessarily a good use of time.
Speaker 1: So across all those things there might still be trance states,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily a greater experience. This this gestalt, this
Speaker 1: overarching experience that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Speaker 1: We have, you know, the trance experience. We have a
Speaker 1: challenging activity that we're very into that we you know,
Speaker 1: are doing for its own sake. All that is something
Speaker 1: over and above the trance like experience that happens. So,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that we can do
Speaker 1: is we can certainly help people to experience trans more readily.
Speaker 1: Although I would point out that trance is, you know,
Speaker 1: very much in everyday phenomenal. We get tranced out by TV,
Speaker 1: we get transced out by books, we get transd out
Speaker 1: in conversations, So this happens all the time. One of
Speaker 1: the funny things is a bit of a debate in
Speaker 1: the hypnosis community is whether hypnosis actually requires a trance
Speaker 1: or whether it is enough to make you know, a
Speaker 1: committed social contract, and how would we differentiate between those.
Speaker 1: Some of the neuroscience research is starting to suggest that
Speaker 1: there is a unique brain state that occurs during hypnosis.
Speaker 1: But differentiating you know, the hypnosis brain state from the
Speaker 1: mindfulness brain state from the flow brain state, assuming we
Speaker 1: could even find one, we're away from getting to that.
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about the science, the neuroscience a flow.
Speaker 2: Some people say that we have it all figured out,
Speaker 2: no way, Uh, but no, but let's let's talk about
Speaker 2: this for a second, because I've seen some interesting research
Speaker 2: on it. It may be not necessarily flow, but it's
Speaker 2: certainly related on jazz improvisers and poets when they're really
Speaker 2: improvising and engaging in a spontaneous fashion, and you see
Speaker 2: a default mode brain network activity, you see a little
Speaker 2: bit of a reduction of activity in the dorsilateral prefrontal cortex.
Speaker 2: You know, So does sort of suggest MIHI was onto
Speaker 2: something in the sense that when you're in the flow,
Speaker 2: and I'm scared to use the word state, but when
Speaker 2: you're when you're in flow, yeah, yeah, okay, okay, I
Speaker 2: like that. I like that. Yeah, yeah, when you're in
Speaker 2: the full experience, I like that a lot. Actually, when
Speaker 2: you're in the full experience, you do tend to have
Speaker 2: less self critical thoughts there, tends to be less of
Speaker 2: a like a second order metacognitive looking down. But the
Speaker 2: nuance there is that clearly that depends on the activity,
Speaker 2: right and what you're engaging in the flow. And but
Speaker 2: I do think that neuroscience is interesting. What are you
Speaker 2: where are some of your thoughts on it?
Speaker 1: I think we're certainly onto something, particularly the work on
Speaker 1: the default mode network and the work on the executive
Speaker 1: function and the DLPFC. Yes, I think we're onto something,
Speaker 1: but I think that just the technology that we have
Speaker 1: and the information we have about the brain is way
Speaker 1: too nascent. It's going to be very exciting, but I
Speaker 1: think we're a long way away from solving this.
Speaker 2: One, solving the whole puzzle. Yeah. I saw some really
Speaker 2: interesting research on the flow as of traits compared to
Speaker 2: other traits, and I noticed there was a very very
Speaker 2: load to non existing correlation with IQ. That was very
Speaker 2: interesting to me because it suggests that regardless of your
Speaker 2: intelligence I'm putting it in quotes right now, that word yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know you can, it doesn't really predict the extent
Speaker 2: to what you're going to get in the flow state
Speaker 2: in your activities. I think that's interesting.
Speaker 1: I think that's absolutely right. I think, especially you know,
Speaker 1: looking at the cross cultural research on flow, we find that,
Speaker 1: you know, having flow experiences is possible almost anywhere. It's
Speaker 1: cross culturally valid. We see it, you know, regardless of
Speaker 1: Soki's socioeconomic status, and there's no reason to believe, like
Speaker 1: when you look at the characteristics of a flow experience, right,
Speaker 1: a clear goal that you know whether you're achieving correctly,
Speaker 1: intrinsic motivation, something that's challenging that really drives you to
Speaker 1: do your best, and probably some kind of translike aspect.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what you need intelligence for for any
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 2: Great point, a really great point. You know there's flow
Speaker 2: at the individual level, there's also a flow at the
Speaker 2: group level. You've done some really seminal work on team flow.
Speaker 2: In fact, the title of your book is Team Flow,
Speaker 2: The Psychology of Optimal Collaboration. Maybe I should just ask
Speaker 2: you straight up, how do you define team flow?
Speaker 1: So I've had the pleasure of working with Chef Fons
Speaker 1: and how it on this and a sort of joke,
Speaker 1: he's the captain on the co pilot. We were both
Speaker 1: independently working on this, and then Chicks that May figured
Speaker 1: that out and introduced us. And the way we came
Speaker 1: to a definition of team flow is that really it's
Speaker 1: a group level experience that is comprised in part of
Speaker 1: individual experiences, a flow while involved that that is derived
Speaker 1: from the team and the team's dynamic. So it's not
Speaker 1: just the individuals all experience flow, but the experience flow
Speaker 1: as part of the team dynamic. Deriving their flow experience
Speaker 1: from the activities related to the team and the team's dynamic,
Speaker 1: and then the team gets also this overarching aspect of
Speaker 1: flow and an incredible group level experience that also matches
Speaker 1: stuff that you know. Other researchers like Key Sawyer pointed out.
Speaker 2: Maybe that is related to group jazz and provisation. We
Speaker 2: think so, yes, yeah, oh yeah, and absolutely you're right.
Speaker 2: Keith Sawyer's great, great work on group creativity. Yes, yes,
Speaker 2: I highly recommend his book as well Group Creativity. Well.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed reading this book of yours in preparation for
Speaker 2: this interview. I like how you take a multi level perspective,
Speaker 2: and I like how you bridge individual flow and team flow.
Speaker 2: Are the two naturally bridged? Surely there are moments where
Speaker 2: when the group is in flow. Is that always are
Speaker 2: all the individuals in flow as well? Necessarily?
Speaker 1: So it's a great question, and we haven't proven it
Speaker 1: one way or the other, but that's definitely our theory.
Speaker 1: Our theory is that the only way for the group
Speaker 1: to have a flow experience is for each of the
Speaker 1: individuals to be experiencing it all. So, and again, as
Speaker 1: related to the team dynamic.
Speaker 2: Nice, nice, I've noticed that you discussed the characteristics of
Speaker 2: team flow. Can you let our listeners know a little
Speaker 2: about accounted for that you mentioned? Can you describe it
Speaker 2: a little bit those characteristics.
Speaker 1: Truth, I mean, there's a whole bunch and most of
Speaker 1: them are analogs of the individual flow characteristics. But one
Speaker 1: of the main things that becomes very important you're trying
Speaker 1: to go from individual flow to team flow is the
Speaker 1: collective ambition. So it's really aligning your goals, the team's goals,
Speaker 1: making sure that everybody's on the same page. Everybody knows
Speaker 1: what they need to do, everybody knows, you know, why
Speaker 1: that's important, why it's important to them, why it's important
Speaker 1: to the team, and everybody's really you know, bought into
Speaker 1: that and a lot of the other things. Then just
Speaker 1: build from there, you know, division of labor, making sure
Speaker 1: that people are doing things that are challenging for them,
Speaker 1: that fit their skills, that they're able to really engage in,
Speaker 1: you know, autotellically, that they're really willing and autotellopay here,
Speaker 1: like they're willing to do the activity for its own sake.
Speaker 1: It's something that means something to them, and if it's
Speaker 1: something that's more of a grind. And you know, there's
Speaker 1: lots of work, especially in the workplace, we have to
Speaker 1: worry about the grind, and there's a lot of work
Speaker 1: that is a grind. But it's do we see the
Speaker 1: grind as worthwhile? Do we see the grind as meaningful?
Speaker 1: And do we see the grind is contributing to the
Speaker 1: opportunity to do things or at least get results that
Speaker 1: we love or that are meaningful to us, or that
Speaker 1: we're intrinsically motivated.
Speaker 2: Yet Yeah, and that's what autotellic means. Right on yourtellic.
Speaker 2: Today's podcast is sponsored by Unlikely Collaborators. Their mission is
Speaker 2: to untangle the stories that hold us back as individuals, communities, nations,
Speaker 2: and humanity at large using the perception box lens. They
Speaker 2: do this through storytelling, experiences, impact investments, and scientific research.
Speaker 2: Today's conversation with Arn really illustrates the importance of expanding
Speaker 2: the walls of our perception box. The perception box is
Speaker 2: the invisible mental box that we all live inside, and
Speaker 2: it can seriously hinder our ability to understand one another
Speaker 2: and to understand ourselves. In this episode, Orin describes the
Speaker 2: latest science of the flow experience that trance like state
Speaker 2: where you are completely absorbed in whatever you are doing
Speaker 2: and your self critical thinking tends to disappear, at least temporarily.
Speaker 2: According to the perception box perspective, we are all affected
Speaker 2: by the stories we tell ourselves about who we are
Speaker 2: and what's possible. But the self is just a story,
Speaker 2: and when we are extremely self focused and feeling anxiety,
Speaker 2: we may be focusing a bit too much on our
Speaker 2: own limiting beliefs or stories that are telling us how
Speaker 2: to navigate in this world. Expanding our perception box allows
Speaker 2: for a deeper presence with whatever is coming and going,
Speaker 2: and allows us to focus non judgmentally on the task
Speaker 2: at hand, making the faux experience much more likely to
Speaker 2: find out more about unlike a collaborators and the perception
Speaker 2: box go to unlikely collaborators dot com? Is that true
Speaker 2: that Mihai's original book title wasn't flow, but it was
Speaker 2: the autotellic personality or something, And then his publisher was like,
Speaker 2: I think flow is better, So I hear I.
Speaker 1: Actually he and I never discussed that one, So I
Speaker 1: actually don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, fair enough. You don't know everything about your
Speaker 2: mentor well, I was hoping you were going to mention
Speaker 2: some of these characteristics of team FOW because I like them,
Speaker 2: and I think they are not exactly the same as
Speaker 2: individual FOLL. Some of them don't make sense in the
Speaker 2: context of individual flow. So sense of unity, sense of
Speaker 2: joint progress, mutual trust, mutual I love that one. Love
Speaker 2: that one, and I also really love this one. Holistic focus.
Speaker 2: So a holistic focus. How often in a group are
Speaker 2: all the members of the group deeply, deeply attuned to
Speaker 2: each other and what's going on. I mean, it seems
Speaker 2: like that's quite beautiful when that can happen, right.
Speaker 1: We definitely found so yes, And most of those turn
Speaker 1: out to be much more emergent, so they come out later.
Speaker 1: And as we build up on the collective ambition, the
Speaker 1: high skill integration and things along those lines, that's when
Speaker 1: we start to get the sense of unity, the joint progress,
Speaker 1: the mutual trust, and that holistic focus, and those come later.
Speaker 1: And that's part of what makes the team flow experience
Speaker 1: so profound and so beautiful, and it's you really feel
Speaker 1: deeply connected with everybody. It's it's unbelievable experience and something
Speaker 1: something I hope everybody gets to have a few times
Speaker 1: at least.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too. The idea of team FOW obviously can
Speaker 2: also apply to music venues, theater venues where people the
Speaker 2: whole audience is in group full Right, have you looked
Speaker 2: at that? I know, I know Keith Sawyer has and uh,
Speaker 2: I'm just wondering, what have you thought about that?
Speaker 1: We haven't looked at that as much. Most of what
Speaker 1: we've been doing is work teams and sports teams.
Speaker 2: Okay, good, that's still a wide swath, that's still a
Speaker 2: wise swaf Well, what are some surprising findings you found
Speaker 2: from those two populations.
Speaker 1: I think the biggest thing was partly the extent to
Speaker 1: which an individual has so much influence. I didn't I
Speaker 1: did think that, you know, the individual could influence the team.
Speaker 1: But I think I I think when I when I
Speaker 1: first made my guesses as to how teamflow was going
Speaker 1: to play out, I think I underestimated the extent to which,
Speaker 1: you know, having every single person bought in and you
Speaker 1: know that maybe some people could hold back a little
Speaker 1: bit and we you know, we'd still be able to
Speaker 1: compensate as a team. We found you really can't do that,
Speaker 1: like you've got you everybody's really got to be all in,
Speaker 1: and if they're not, it's going to compromise the experience,
Speaker 1: not just for the individual which is the other thing
Speaker 1: we didn't catch, at least I didn't, but for everybody
Speaker 1: that if you don't go all in you're not going
Speaker 1: to have the good experience either. Yeah, and some people,
Speaker 1: like you know, you think like, Okay, I can do
Speaker 1: what I need to do and I get a decent
Speaker 1: experience and it'll be fine. But if you want the
Speaker 1: flow experience, you've got to go all in. And that's
Speaker 1: true for individual flow, but it's also true on the
Speaker 1: team flow that you know you can do your best,
Speaker 1: but you have to do your best and be all in. Wow.
Speaker 2: And does that necessarily apply in the individual full level?
Speaker 1: We do find it mostly at the individual flow level
Speaker 1: because once again, you've got to be all in. But
Speaker 1: the real question was with that multiplied to the team
Speaker 1: and if you're part of a team and you know
Speaker 1: you're doing your best, but you're not necessarily all in,
Speaker 1: or you're you know, not as committed as you know,
Speaker 1: you're not one hundred percent committed, you know, maybe just
Speaker 1: reasonably committed, and you figure this will this will get
Speaker 1: it together. This should make things work, not so much.
Speaker 2: What is a surprising finding within the individual flow? Like
Speaker 2: I want I'm gonna I'm thinking about labeling this discussion
Speaker 2: to you that the latest science of flow or something
Speaker 2: like of the full Experience or something like that. So really,
Speaker 2: you know, you're the leader in this field, I mean,
Speaker 2: studying it scientifically, can you educate our audience? You're the
Speaker 2: professor right now, I'm giving you the mic.
Speaker 1: Sure, So I think I'm gonna start with I think
Speaker 1: the most surprising thing is that it's rare. We'd like
Speaker 1: to think that a flow experience something like this, we
Speaker 1: think we have it all the time. We actually don't.
Speaker 1: And I've been finding more and more as I look
Speaker 1: into the science of flow that it's rare, and it's
Speaker 1: actually very hard to get And I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: even even when you know what it is and you
Speaker 1: know what it's about, it's rare and it's hard to
Speaker 1: get to because often we don't have the energy for
Speaker 1: it and we're often not in the mood. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, the thing that was the most surprising for
Speaker 1: me throughout all my research was the extent to which
Speaker 1: this is really context dependent, and it's your energy level
Speaker 1: and mood that really get into this because very often
Speaker 1: we want to flow experience, but we're too tired. We're
Speaker 1: not able to put forth the effort. And in some
Speaker 1: cases even when the activity is auto atallic. You know,
Speaker 1: it's something that we love to do and we do
Speaker 1: it for its own sake and we're driven to do it,
Speaker 1: but we're still too tired.
Speaker 2: It's such a good point. What are some things some
Speaker 2: specific tips to help people increase the full estate? So
Speaker 2: that's one is not being tired. What are some others
Speaker 2: that research shows?
Speaker 1: So I think the other thing is to check your
Speaker 1: mood and find out are what are you in the
Speaker 1: mood for first of all, But second of all, like
Speaker 1: the energy level, management is a big thing. It's not
Speaker 1: just whether you're tired, but it's also setting the challenge
Speaker 1: level for you and setting the skill level that you're
Speaker 1: willing to apply, and then creating a goal that fits
Speaker 1: with your mood and your energy level, and making sure
Speaker 1: that there are feedback loops that aren't going to drain
Speaker 1: you and that are actually going to energize you. As
Speaker 1: I said, I think that big surprise for me is
Speaker 1: the extent to which setting up the right feedback loops
Speaker 1: is critical and that seems to be making more of
Speaker 1: a difference in flow experiences I find than almost anything else,
Speaker 1: because if you got the right goal, you got the
Speaker 1: right challenge level, you're applying the right skill level, you
Speaker 1: got the energy to do it. But one of the
Speaker 1: things that will keep you going is if you get
Speaker 1: feedback something that basically cheers you on in a sense
Speaker 1: or moves you forward and says, come on, you're getting there.
Speaker 1: Come on, you're getting there. And if you can set
Speaker 1: that up in a way that will actually energize you
Speaker 1: or at least is appropriate to your energy level, won't
Speaker 1: demand more than you think you got, that might get
Speaker 1: you moving toward a flow experience very effectively.
Speaker 2: It makes a lot of sense. I find that it
Speaker 2: takes I have to get It takes me some revn
Speaker 2: up before I get in the full experience. Like if
Speaker 2: I go running, it takes you know, maybe like fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2: If I'm writing, it'll take you know, some time for
Speaker 2: me of effortful works. It almost seems like I need
Speaker 2: to have effort full work first to kind of rev
Speaker 2: it up, and then and then it's like sleep. It
Speaker 2: just like clicks in you didn't if you couldn't force it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's it's an emergent experience. And as such,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't. We don't go from you know,
Speaker 1: zero to sixty. None of us goes from zero to sixty.
Speaker 1: People keep thinking about like dropping in to flow, like
Speaker 1: that's not happening. Flow is the virgin. You've got to
Speaker 1: build up the context.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, forget about it. Do you do you roll
Speaker 2: your eyes when you see sometimes seeing the popular media
Speaker 2: like the ten hacks to get in the flow, or like,
Speaker 2: you know, like do you see do you ever see
Speaker 2: things in the popwar media about flow that like that
Speaker 2: that that you feel like aren't scientifically sound all the.
Speaker 1: Time, and guilty is charged. I admit to all those irol.
Speaker 2: Holes I see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, sorry, yes I do.
Speaker 2: You're a scientist, yeah, yes.
Speaker 1: What worries me about it is that people is that
Speaker 1: these things cheapen the flow experience and they try to
Speaker 1: democratize it down to a level that makes people unaware
Speaker 1: of how deep and how profound the flow experience is.
Speaker 1: And I think that people then experience you know, lower
Speaker 1: levels of let's say trance or mindfulness in an enjoyable
Speaker 1: activity and then think that they've gotten that flow experience,
Speaker 1: and then they you know, by thinking that they have that,
Speaker 1: they miss out on what's actually greater. They miss out on,
Speaker 1: you know, experiencing an activity that they're very deeply driven
Speaker 1: to do, where you know, there is this merging of
Speaker 1: action in a awareness where everything that's going on is
Speaker 1: directly related to that activity and you're really locked in
Speaker 1: on this one thing. It is pushing you to your limit,
Speaker 1: and you are you are sweating, you are grunting, you
Speaker 1: are putting forth more effort maybe than you even knew
Speaker 1: was possible. And for the record, in the moment, it's
Speaker 1: actually probably not a pleasant experience, you know, when you're
Speaker 1: when you're putting forth your strongest efforts and your greatest efforts,
Speaker 1: this isn't fun. And yet because you're driven to do
Speaker 1: the activity, and because you've got feedback loose that are
Speaker 1: cheering you on, and then you work your way through
Speaker 1: the activity and you achieve something that is meaningful to
Speaker 1: you within the activity. It doesn't even have to be
Speaker 1: like a wing per se, or or even like you know,
Speaker 1: if you're climbing, even to get to the top necessarily,
Speaker 1: but to have pushed yourself to your limits and beyond,
Speaker 1: you know, in this in this trans state, when you're
Speaker 1: driven to do it and you've got the feedback, it
Speaker 1: is an unbelievable It's an ineffable experience. And what I
Speaker 1: don't like about a lot of this pops is that
Speaker 1: it brings the ineffable down to this, you know, very
Speaker 1: quotitian level, and that worries me. I don't want I
Speaker 1: don't want people to have that because I do believe,
Speaker 1: you know, as we discussed, everyone's capable of experiencing flow
Speaker 1: and even experiencing flow with some frequency. And I think
Speaker 1: that for all of us to have the ineffable and
Speaker 1: to have a taste of the ineffable you know, more often,
Speaker 1: even if it's not as often as you'd have, you know,
Speaker 1: using these quotidian hacks, I think that to the extent
Speaker 1: of which we could have that would still be greater
Speaker 1: than having something lower level more frequently.
Speaker 2: I need to process that, you know. Maslow made the
Speaker 2: distinction between the peak experience and the plateau experience. That
Speaker 2: sounds like maybe that's a similar distinction to what you're making.
Speaker 2: Maslow described the plateaux experience as like lounging in heaven,
Speaker 2: not but not getting so excited about it and being
Speaker 2: able to sustain it more during the course of your
Speaker 2: day than the one off, sort of grandiose moment. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you resonate with this at all, but
Speaker 2: it sort of seems like that's what you're saying to
Speaker 2: a certain degree.
Speaker 1: His usual, Maslow nailed it.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think you're gonna say, as usual, you nailed it.
Speaker 2: Scott said, well you.
Speaker 1: Did, you did? You did by calling out the.
Speaker 2: I'm teasing, I thought that was where you're going with that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, no, you're right, absolutly right. That's why
Speaker 2: we're we're we're both the great admirers of Maslow. I
Speaker 2: assume you're an admirer of Mazzo, and and I think
Speaker 2: that I or Mike would call Mike was a great
Speaker 2: admirer of Maso as well. Right, Yes, is that fair
Speaker 2: to say?
Speaker 1: Did he really encourage me to read a lot of it?
Speaker 2: Oh? Good? Good to so you you and him had
Speaker 2: a chat about Mazow. You know, we're going to dedicate
Speaker 2: this episode to his memory. I hope you're okay with
Speaker 2: that dedication. May he rest in peace. I am very remiss.
Speaker 2: I never got a chance to have him on my podcast.
Speaker 2: In a lot of ways, you're his voice right here.
Speaker 2: So please let me know if there's anything in particular
Speaker 2: that that I'm missing, anything that you that you think
Speaker 2: he would want to say about Flow, about himself, whatever,
Speaker 2: you know, Please, this is this is your time.
Speaker 1: So I think that one of the things that he
Speaker 1: would say. I think Mike would say that Flow experience
Speaker 1: is there's something for everyone, and that even though it
Speaker 1: is this ineffable thing, and it's an ineffable, it's this
Speaker 1: incredible experience, this you know, astronomically wonderful thing, it's for
Speaker 1: everybody and everyone should have access to it. And that
Speaker 1: was something that Mike was always about in general, was
Speaker 1: that everyone should have access to the good things. And
Speaker 1: he wanted to find ways to ensure that everyone had
Speaker 1: access to the good things and even to the great
Speaker 1: things and to all the best that life has to offer.
Speaker 1: And he always he always seemed to argue and contend that,
Speaker 1: you know, we try to put some of these things
Speaker 1: out of breach for people, and that's that's not really ethical.
Speaker 1: The rather, we should make sure that everyone can have
Speaker 1: these greatest things because they're all in the mind anyway,
Speaker 1: and because we all have access to them. And the
Speaker 1: most amazing thing is that some of us don't realize
Speaker 1: we have that access. And so show the people, show
Speaker 1: everyone where their access to these amazing things is, and
Speaker 1: let's bring flow to the people. And I think that's,
Speaker 1: you know, part of why he didn't just write scholarly
Speaker 1: articles to get hidden behind paywalls, written in you know,
Speaker 1: scientific language that not everybody can read. He spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time writing the books because he really wanted
Speaker 1: everybody to be in.
Speaker 2: On this democratizing flow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, why not?
Speaker 2: Well, as you know, my friend Stephen Cotler has been
Speaker 2: doing lots and lots of trainings in the general population
Speaker 2: on this topic. But I think that there's a lot
Speaker 2: more that can be done to democratize this topic. I
Speaker 2: believe you've a company, is that right? Aren't you working
Speaker 2: on this too and helping people tactically, not not just
Speaker 2: keeping it in the in the journals, tell people about
Speaker 2: your work on this sure.
Speaker 1: So, first of all, I do have to say about Coytler.
Speaker 1: He's certainly practicing his own version of things. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that his work fits in or aligns well with mics.
Speaker 1: It's his own version and I don't think it devetails
Speaker 1: with chickset me how has worked very well, but Mike
Speaker 1: didn't want to argue with people on this. There have
Speaker 1: been various forms of the cannon out there, but they're
Speaker 1: not all the same. I run the Quality of Life Lab,
Speaker 1: and you know, part of what I'm doing is I'm
Speaker 1: consulting and helping companies and also individuals finding ways to
Speaker 1: experience flow, mostly at work, but I'm also looking at
Speaker 1: something called interstitial time. It's like the time between times.
Speaker 1: How do we make the most of our time and
Speaker 1: using our time well? And this I love trains the
Speaker 1: backster in this. I love trains and I love riding trains.
Speaker 1: But the funny thing about, you know, riding trains is
Speaker 1: that you also have to wait for trains. Waiting for
Speaker 1: trades is annoying. And you know, when when you're a commuter,
Speaker 1: when you have to commute, and you know, I grew
Speaker 1: up outside in New York City. You know, watch my
Speaker 1: dad commute into the city, my mom sometimes, so you know,
Speaker 1: you got to sit there and wait for the train,
Speaker 1: and if the train is late, what do you do
Speaker 1: in that time? And so one of the questions that
Speaker 1: I came to chicks that the hid with as a
Speaker 1: grad student is, in a very real sense, what's the
Speaker 1: optimal experience under suboptimal conditions?
Speaker 2: Nice? Nice?
Speaker 1: So what can we do when we're when we can't
Speaker 1: necessarily have a full experience? There's some kind of analog
Speaker 1: of it that we could actually experience? Could we have
Speaker 1: a microflow experience? And that was something that you know,
Speaker 1: Mike theorized a long time ago, like back in seventy five.
Speaker 1: He was talking about it, but nobody ever did anything
Speaker 1: with it. I picked it up. I was like, this
Speaker 1: is cool. So I've been looking at like how people
Speaker 1: can use their time, and particularly use the time that
Speaker 1: comes between the major blocks in our day. So the
Speaker 1: hypothetical I like to give people is, you know, imagine
Speaker 1: you're going to meet somebody at five o'clock and they
Speaker 1: text you right at five o'clock to say, I'm running
Speaker 1: ten minutes late. Now, what's the best way to use
Speaker 1: those ten minutes? And can I actually do research? Can
Speaker 1: I actually prove to you that there was some kind
Speaker 1: of algorithm that you could use to figure out the
Speaker 1: best way to use those ten minutes. So I'm spending
Speaker 1: a lot of time, you know, looking into that and
Speaker 1: how we manage that. So far, some of the tips
Speaker 1: that I was pointing out for flow apply just as
Speaker 1: readily to microflow. You just have to keep in mind
Speaker 1: you've only got ten minutes.
Speaker 2: That's true. Yeah, that that is really a really cool
Speaker 2: line of inquiry. Micropho microphone. Who coined that sort of expression?
Speaker 2: Was that you?
Speaker 1: That was Mike? Actually, he actually mentioned microflow in Beyond
Speaker 1: Bord of men Anxiety in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2: Oh, I see, but she.
Speaker 1: Never really touched it since then. And so you know,
Speaker 1: me as a grad student, you know, picking this up, going,
Speaker 1: you know, what's this because he didn't really do anything
Speaker 1: with it. He I think you mentioned it like one
Speaker 1: more time in two thousand and two in you know,
Speaker 1: a book chapter somewhere, and that was it. Well, color
Speaker 1: me curious.
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Speaker 2: are some applications to sparkteamflow?
Speaker 1: So there are a few. I think the main thing is,
Speaker 1: first of all, just getting to know people on the team,
Speaker 1: like what are they about, what are their motivations? And
Speaker 1: figuring out like what people have in common, over and
Speaker 1: above like the goal of the team, like why are
Speaker 1: we all here? And I find that one of the
Speaker 1: biggest things is that teams don't actually ask that question
Speaker 1: why are we here? And often teams also aren't deliberately created.
Speaker 1: And I think that one of the things that actually
Speaker 1: even like, you know, pre team getting together is you know,
Speaker 1: is the team being deliberately created and are we actually
Speaker 1: picking people that should be on the team for a reason.
Speaker 1: It's like if you find yourself brought into the roof
Speaker 1: of the team and you don't know why you were
Speaker 1: picked for the team. I mean, you're already off on
Speaker 1: the wrong foot. So you want to make sure that
Speaker 1: everybody knows why they're there and everybody believes that they've
Speaker 1: been deliberately picked to be there. I think that the
Speaker 1: ad hoc nature of the way, especially business teams, we
Speaker 1: see this a lot, like, well, we need warm bodies
Speaker 1: for this, so we're gonna put all these people in
Speaker 1: a room, or you know, we need parallel processing, or
Speaker 1: we need you know, X number of hands, so we're
Speaker 1: gonna put these people on the team. This is this
Speaker 1: is a recipe for definitely not teamflow, if not disaster.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1: So I think the biggest hack is making sure that
Speaker 1: everybody knows was why they're there, and then everybody's actually
Speaker 1: you know, bought into why they were why they're there,
Speaker 1: and that they want to be there, because the you know,
Speaker 1: one of the most destructive things for our team is
Speaker 1: you know, forcing somebody to be honest that doesn't want
Speaker 1: to be there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that is so true. Okay, I think I
Speaker 2: think we can move on to hypnosis because I'm curious
Speaker 2: at what point in your career. You got interest in
Speaker 2: that topic and and I want to know if there
Speaker 2: is a real science to it. I think that it
Speaker 2: has some criticism within the field of psychology, so I'd
Speaker 2: love you to set people straight on this.
Speaker 1: Sure. So I think the funniest thing is I got
Speaker 1: into hypnosis when I was six, not.
Speaker 2: Kidding, were you hypnotized?
Speaker 1: Some kids get into basketball, some kids get into karate.
Speaker 1: I saw this hypnosis thing. I was like, this is cool,
Speaker 1: and believe it or not, you know, Jewish culture does
Speaker 1: have a very strong emphasis on self actualization, and you know,
Speaker 1: going to Yeshiva was something that you know, I heard
Speaker 1: a lot, not always is the term self actualization, but
Speaker 1: that you know, we're supposed to do our best, to
Speaker 1: be our best, to develop ourselves. And I started to
Speaker 1: notice that hypnosis may be something useful for developing our
Speaker 1: best selves, that the trance, that the trance state, or
Speaker 1: at least you know, using using this tool may turn
Speaker 1: out to be very helpful for us, because I started
Speaker 1: noticing that under hypnosis, people seemed to be able to
Speaker 1: do things that they couldn't seem to do otherwise. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean, remember I'm six years old. They don't really
Speaker 1: you know get all this very well, but I'm making
Speaker 1: these observations that I'm like, okay, once again, color me curious.
Speaker 1: I want to know what's going on here. And so
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of fumbling around, a lot of
Speaker 1: practicing and hypnotizing stuffed animals just to get you know,
Speaker 1: my my flow down and to you know, learn how
Speaker 1: to get this done. I mean, you had to practice
Speaker 1: on something and you know, thinking about it and you know,
Speaker 1: coming up with wild, crazy theories for how this all
Speaker 1: might work, which was which was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: And then you know, as I as I got more
Speaker 1: into research, I got a little more serious about it.
Speaker 1: But I also found that it was very hard to
Speaker 1: do research on hypnosis. And I think, you know, as
Speaker 1: much as I'm a fan of hypnosis and hypnosis research,
Speaker 1: there are some critiques in the psychology community. And they're
Speaker 1: not wrong either.
Speaker 2: Like what what are the critiques?
Speaker 1: So one of them is that hypnosis is very hard
Speaker 1: to replicate. So you know, when we're especially in an
Speaker 1: era when we're talking about your running studies that are replicable,
Speaker 1: it's often hard to create a hypnosis study that has
Speaker 1: good generalizability and that actually replicates. And you know, even
Speaker 1: let's say across hypnotists or across contexts or something that's
Speaker 1: you know, actually useful and practical. One of the main
Speaker 1: things that we found hypnosis to be good for is
Speaker 1: a relaxation. We found it's good for pain control, and
Speaker 1: some really neat research like you know, pretty much hot
Speaker 1: off the presses in the last few years on hypnosis
Speaker 1: being used for PTSD oh wow, and also for for
Speaker 1: mitigating some of the diletarious effects of cancer.
Speaker 2: That is so interesting. What what is the mechanism of hypnosis?
Speaker 1: So this is a good one. And to be honest
Speaker 1: with you, we don't know. I generally joke that hypnosis
Speaker 1: is is to even scientists the way a microwave is
Speaker 1: to most people. Most people don't know how a microwave works.
Speaker 1: You put in the food, you hit the right buttons,
Speaker 1: and you you know, you know which buttons to hit,
Speaker 1: and then you know how to deal with what comes out.
Speaker 1: Most hypnotists they're just operating a microwave, like they don't
Speaker 1: know how it works. But you know what, we're experts
Speaker 1: at pressing the right buttons, putting you know, the right
Speaker 1: things in setting them up exactly just so so that
Speaker 1: we you know, so things will come out in some
Speaker 1: kind of predictable fashion. Now, what we do know is
Speaker 1: that there's a great deal of absorption going on, that
Speaker 1: people are in a very absorbed and I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say state. I'm just gonna point out there is
Speaker 1: some contentions. Some people think it's not a state. The
Speaker 1: evidence is very quickly mounting towards the state side, especially
Speaker 1: as we get more neuroscience research done. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say state and put a put an asterisk on it.
Speaker 1: Some people disagree, but we definitely find that there's a
Speaker 1: state going on. We see heightened suggestibility, that is a
Speaker 1: greater willingness to turn ideas into realities, you know, the
Speaker 1: sort of details with some of the work that we've
Speaker 1: been seeing on imagination, the ability to think as real
Speaker 1: and to you know, actually even experience suggested perceptions. And
Speaker 1: so I kind of think of hypnosis as an amplifier
Speaker 1: more than anything else. It helps, It helps you focus,
Speaker 1: and then it helps amplify whatever it is that you
Speaker 1: choose to amplify. I mean, funny little secret, but but
Speaker 1: hypnotize the word hypnotize is actually not a transitive verb, right,
Speaker 1: Like the statement I hypnotized you, actually doesn't make any
Speaker 1: sense whatsoever. We have a rule in hypnosis, and it
Speaker 1: is all hypnosis is self hypnosis. So if I'm hypnotizing you,
Speaker 1: I'm not actually like doing something to you. I'm actually
Speaker 1: helping you do something to yourself. And as a hypnotist,
Speaker 1: what that means is that I'm really good at helping
Speaker 1: people do this and you know, work through this process.
Speaker 1: You know, just the same as any fitness coach. You know,
Speaker 1: you're the one doing the exercises. That's as true mentally
Speaker 1: as it is physically, Like you're the one doing the exercises.
Speaker 1: I'm guiding you. I'm saying, okay, now try doing this,
Speaker 1: try doing that, all right, go do this, Go do that.
Speaker 1: And then you're the one who actually has to do it.
Speaker 1: So you don't actually hypnotize other people. You enable or
Speaker 1: empower other people to go into a state of hypnosis,
Speaker 1: to experience hypnosis, and then to use it in ways
Speaker 1: that are effective for them.
Speaker 2: Yes, so maybe true that you're the one doing it,
Speaker 2: but if you don't have a memory of doing it
Speaker 2: or awareness of doing it, that seems to me like
Speaker 2: it is kind of operating without your permission. To a
Speaker 2: certain degree though, just to push back in that a second.
Speaker 1: Sure, except that the overwhelming majority of the time people
Speaker 1: do remember it. Interesting, So, no, people remember it almost
Speaker 1: all the time, and unless there's unless there's a suggestion
Speaker 1: or some kind of you know, or some kind of
Speaker 1: desire not to remember it, by default, people do remember
Speaker 1: what they did when they were hypnotized. The only reason
Speaker 1: why people think otherwise is that it makes for a
Speaker 1: great plot device. Most of the stuff you see on
Speaker 1: TV just isn't real, isn't real, and it's just it's
Speaker 1: just a plot device to make, you know, to make
Speaker 1: things work, you know, in a cute little pretense. But
Speaker 1: that's not the reality.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite magicians is the mentalist Darren Brown,
Speaker 2: and a lot of his work relies on what he
Speaker 2: calls hypnosis. I don't know the full extent to which
Speaker 2: he has been trained and does it properly, but I've
Speaker 2: been to one of his shows and he hypnotized half
Speaker 2: of the audience. But I, you know, he didn't hypnotize me, uh,
Speaker 2: because I didn't want to be And I wonder what
Speaker 2: extent you really can resist it? Yeah? How much can
Speaker 2: you resist it?
Speaker 1: Fully? No exceptions?
Speaker 2: Well, that's really really interesting and important information. I'm glad
Speaker 2: I ask you that question. That is so interesting as
Speaker 2: you As you know, I am also a big fan
Speaker 2: of the constructive absorption which you mentioned. I've been thinking
Speaker 2: about writing a book about absorption. It's just a very understudied,
Speaker 2: very understudied area of psychology that is not exactly the
Speaker 2: same thing as flow and intelligent deserves. I love giving
Speaker 2: credit word to do intelligent. Awtelligent is the one who
Speaker 2: really put that on the map in the psychological literature.
Speaker 2: But they're unfortunately not too many studies on that. But
Speaker 2: the studies that I've done on it has shown it's
Speaker 2: quite intertwined tightly with creativity and with the with the
Speaker 2: creative experience. So anyway, I think that's neat. Take that
Speaker 2: for what for what you will.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And I mean, Scott, I definitely agree with
Speaker 1: you on this and Funnel enough when you told me,
Speaker 1: you know, we've been emailing and told we were going
Speaker 1: to be writing a book on absorption, I can tell
Speaker 1: you like I had a kid in a candy store moment.
Speaker 1: I was so excited because I think you and I
Speaker 1: actually came to this conclusion independent. I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm not so crazy for thinking that absorption is going
Speaker 1: to be one of the keys to high performance and
Speaker 1: doing your best and you know, getting the self actualizations.
Speaker 1: Kind of what got me into hypnosis in the first
Speaker 1: place is I was like, all right, I feel seen.
Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah. Man, it's it's a really dynamite traits that
Speaker 2: is just not as heavily studied in the field. And
Speaker 2: even flow is not heavily studied in the field. I mean,
Speaker 2: there are a handful of psychologists such as yourself and Gene, right,
Speaker 2: I tell us about Gene's work.
Speaker 1: So Ginakamura is doing a lot of work on the
Speaker 1: personal aspects of flow, like let's say the autotelic personality
Speaker 1: and whether and the autotolic personality is basically looking at
Speaker 1: flow pronus, like to what extent are you more or
Speaker 1: less likely to be the kind of person that experiences
Speaker 1: flow either more deeply or more frequently. And I mean
Speaker 1: Gene is very much a developmental psychologist, so she's looking
Speaker 1: at that, she's looking at mentoring, she's looking at flow
Speaker 1: across the lifespan, and to what extent were that positive
Speaker 1: development may contribute to greater flow pronus or to the
Speaker 1: extent to which flow may contribute to positive development and
Speaker 1: well being, especially in adulthood.
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Speaker 2: That link to well being is huge and well, then
Speaker 2: maybe that's a nice segue to the field of a
Speaker 2: discussion of the field of positive psychology because flow and
Speaker 2: is a big concept in posit psychology. And was Mike
Speaker 2: your advisor one of the founders of the field, along
Speaker 2: with with Martin Sockman.
Speaker 1: I always argue that Maslow was more the founder of
Speaker 1: the field.
Speaker 2: I would I agree, I agree, but modern day let's
Speaker 2: call it modern day positive psychology. It was what's the
Speaker 2: origin story? Marty Seligman had lunch or dinner a restaurant
Speaker 2: with Mike in nineteen ninety six or something, and then
Speaker 2: it was born there they were talking all night or
Speaker 2: something about it.
Speaker 1: I think that Marty and Mike had a lot of
Speaker 1: great discussions. But Chris Peterson was also a blessed memory,
Speaker 1: was also very heavily involved in this. And I think
Speaker 1: that you know it was Marty, Mike and Chris, and
Speaker 1: I know that you know Marty and Mike did a
Speaker 1: lot of things, but I mean, these are these are
Speaker 1: three I don't know if you've met have you ever
Speaker 1: met Chris Peterson.
Speaker 2: A week a week before he died.
Speaker 1: Wow, a really great guy. I met him only once
Speaker 1: or twice, had some discussions with him, and I immediately
Speaker 1: thought he was awesome. But I think three very different personalities,
Speaker 1: and so they each added different things to the field.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, as much as so Marty,
Speaker 1: I think was looking at you know, mess lobby and
Speaker 1: mess lobby and works and the work of humanistic psychology
Speaker 1: and realized that we really needed to put as a
Speaker 1: lot of pun on this, a positive spin on the
Speaker 1: whole thing, to make it more empirical and to extend
Speaker 1: it into something that could be more readily researched than
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the clinical work that, albeit
Speaker 1: inspiring and wonderful and very powerful, we like to actually
Speaker 1: get some some harder science underpinning it and really exploring
Speaker 1: what's what's actually going on. And Seligmun I think was
Speaker 1: really trying to move the fields in that direction and
Speaker 1: to create you know, more research on that, and so
Speaker 1: that you know, led to his APA address. But it
Speaker 1: was something that Chicks sent me. Hig and Peterson both
Speaker 1: also agreed with, and they started talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: what a positive psychology would look like. And I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, each of them brought different pieces to this field.
Speaker 1: And I think Seligman absolutely brought the leadership and the
Speaker 1: vision and you know, really the overarching view of how
Speaker 1: it would go. But then you know, Chicks Sent Me High. Peterson,
Speaker 1: I think Chicks at Me High was very much, you know,
Speaker 1: making sure that this gets distributed not just to scientists
Speaker 1: but to the people, and also making sure that you know,
Speaker 1: everything was founded in solid developmental psych principles. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, Seligman was more of him an abnormal psychologist
Speaker 1: cognitive psychologists. Chick Sent Me Hi was a developmental psychologist.
Speaker 1: So really looking at you know, positive psychology throughout the lifetime.
Speaker 1: And I admit that I don't recall Peterson's specialty, but
Speaker 1: it might have been might have been developmental cognitive also
Speaker 1: some or even clinical something.
Speaker 2: Along that one. Yeah, I want to say personality psychologist.
Speaker 2: I don't know, so m'd be.
Speaker 1: Right again, Peterson is the one I knew the least well.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but I think you know, one of his
Speaker 1: one of his best lines that I think everybody just
Speaker 1: keeps quoting Peterson as saying is other people.
Speaker 2: Matter, correct, correct, And I think that you.
Speaker 1: Really brought a lot into psychology with that.
Speaker 2: I agree, I agree, and I love that. What is
Speaker 2: your criticism of positive psychology?
Speaker 1: So per se? I don't have that much criticism of it.
Speaker 1: What I where I start to have the criticisms is
Speaker 1: where people take it into pop psychology directions and where
Speaker 1: people conflate vision, theory and practice. And so when I
Speaker 1: look at a lot of Selogumn's work, I see it
Speaker 1: as theory. I don't see it as and I see
Speaker 1: it mostly as vision like the perma like the perma thing.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's empirical, and I've looked at it.
Speaker 1: That's not so much empirical as much as it is vision. Like,
Speaker 1: let's look at these six things and let's, you know,
Speaker 1: get an understanding of how they work, how they may
Speaker 1: work together. These are clearly going to be important details,
Speaker 1: So let's do research on them so much as you know,
Speaker 1: using that as a as a clear metric of well being,
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't. I'm not sure that that's
Speaker 1: really where it was all supposed to go. As much,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think these theories of these visions
Speaker 1: were meant to come down into like checklists, you know,
Speaker 1: much in the way I think that self determination theory,
Speaker 1: know DC and Ryan's work on self determination theory, I
Speaker 1: don't think it's really meant to be brought down into
Speaker 1: checklists of like, you know, you got this, got this,
Speaker 1: got this. Yes, you need autonomy, competence, and relatedness, but
Speaker 1: don't treat this like a checklist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I agree that that's a really great point.
Speaker 2: What's end this interview talking a little bit more generally
Speaker 2: and broadly about self actualization and transcendence. I know that
Speaker 2: you're looking into this. I'd love to hear your own
Speaker 2: conceptualization of the difference between self actualization and transcendence and
Speaker 2: uh and what the algorithm for for them would be.
Speaker 2: What what would be the concrete steps people should take
Speaker 2: and the questions they should be asking themselves on the
Speaker 2: route to both of these things.
Speaker 1: Sure, so, I think that self actualization is an upward
Speaker 1: spiral in which we are going through the process of
Speaker 1: understanding our potential and then fulfilling that potential, which opens
Speaker 1: up new potential that we then you go around and
Speaker 1: do again, you know, developing upward and upward, and then
Speaker 1: through that, I think that we develop a uniqueness and
Speaker 1: a way to contribute to the world that goes beyond
Speaker 1: ourselves and lasts beyond ourselves, and that to me is
Speaker 1: the self transcendent aspect. And that so to me, you know,
Speaker 1: self actualization is developing and making your uniqueness real and
Speaker 1: more effective and you know, applicable to the world. And
Speaker 1: then you know, you bring it out there, you create something.
Speaker 1: And I do believe it's definitely related to creativity as
Speaker 1: Maslow did that that you create something, you put it
Speaker 1: out in the world, and this thing stays in the
Speaker 1: world and is outside of you, it goes beyond you.
Speaker 1: And I think that that self actualization once again, it's
Speaker 1: one of those as self transcendence. Rather, it's one of
Speaker 1: those ineffable things that when we put something out in
Speaker 1: the world that we know is our unique stamp that lasts,
Speaker 1: you know, beyond our lifetimes, even that we know that
Speaker 1: we've achieved something worthwhile. And once again, that's something that
Speaker 1: everybody can do, and it's something I really do want
Speaker 1: to see for everyone. And so you know, along those lines,
Speaker 1: I am looking for the algorithm to it. Now am
Speaker 1: I actually going to find it? Good luck? But what
Speaker 1: I would say is, you know, even if I make
Speaker 1: some progress in my lifetime, I think that's that's worth something.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I found, you know,
Speaker 1: early on in my work and I've been developing and
Speaker 1: trying to understand, is that Socrates was absolutely right in
Speaker 1: that whole time at nske thing and obviously said it
Speaker 1: in Greek, which I don't know as well, but know thyself,
Speaker 1: and we actually don't take the time to get to
Speaker 1: know ourselves. And I've been finding over and over and
Speaker 1: over again in my time as a college professor, as
Speaker 1: a coach, as a consultant in companies, we really haven't
Speaker 1: gotten the chance to shake hands with ourselves and have
Speaker 1: a little sit down. We really don't get to know
Speaker 1: ourselves that well. And we spend so much of our
Speaker 1: time trying to contort ourselves into so that we fit
Speaker 1: into the world around us that we sometimes don't think
Speaker 1: about who we are, what we're about, and whether that
Speaker 1: contortion is a good idea, and you know what, sometimes
Speaker 1: it is, But we don't always make that a deliberate
Speaker 1: choice on our part. And I think we can. I
Speaker 1: think we should if we're going to if we're going
Speaker 1: to shift ourselves if we're going to try and mold
Speaker 1: ourselves to our environment, and in a sense we do
Speaker 1: have to, right, we can't just we can't just be
Speaker 1: one hundred percent ourselves and impose ourselves on the world.
Speaker 1: You know, we interact with the world, the world interacts
Speaker 1: with us. But I think that we can do it
Speaker 1: much more deliberately than we are doing it. And so
Speaker 1: one of the things that been telling people like, you know,
Speaker 1: the first thing if you don't know yourself or you're
Speaker 1: not sure you know yourself, is get to know your preferences.
Speaker 1: And when I say preferences, I'm talking about in some
Speaker 1: cases the little things. You know, what's your favorite color?
Speaker 1: And just for a funny exercise, it is shocking to
Speaker 1: me how many people you just go up to them
Speaker 1: and you say, what's your favorite color, and you get
Speaker 1: a moment like, you know, Monty Python, the Holy girld
Speaker 1: boo don't yo or something along those lines. People don't
Speaker 1: actually know the favorite color. People don't always know their
Speaker 1: food tastes or their hobbies. Yes, people, what are your hobbies? Uh?
Speaker 1: Now they have hobbies, of course they do, but they
Speaker 1: don't always think about it, and they don't really know
Speaker 1: what gets them going or what gets them excited, you know,
Speaker 1: those autotellic activities, the things that they love to do
Speaker 1: for their own say, they actually don't know what they
Speaker 1: are sometimes, And so I invite people to get to
Speaker 1: know themselves to find out, you know, what foods do
Speaker 1: you like? What colors do you like? What music do
Speaker 1: you like? And start looking for some patterns. And I
Speaker 1: think that that's a great place for anyone to start.
Speaker 1: And I find it actually somewhat surprising that when I
Speaker 1: ask people to start on this, they actually struggle with
Speaker 1: this exercise, like, you know, what music do you like?
Speaker 1: I don't kind of like everything. You you have certain preferences,
Speaker 1: you know this or that, And if you have to
Speaker 1: do a b testing with yourself, like do I like
Speaker 1: A A or B more? I mean, go ahead and
Speaker 1: do that. Go play with your Go play with your
Speaker 1: playlist and see what's there. What are what are the
Speaker 1: songs that you know you need at different times? What
Speaker 1: are the foods that you want at different times? What
Speaker 1: are the comfort foods? What are you know? What are
Speaker 1: the interesting foods? What do you like to make? What
Speaker 1: colors do you like? To see? What art do you like?
Speaker 1: To see in the world. What do you like to
Speaker 1: wear each of these, you know, random little things, and
Speaker 1: people say, well, then what do you do for one thing?
Speaker 1: Just start by doing that, and I think that that
Speaker 1: opens up other doors because then you start to ask
Speaker 1: yourself questions like why do I like that, you know,
Speaker 1: why do I like these foods and not those foods?
Speaker 1: Why do I like this music and not that music?
Speaker 1: Why do I like this music at these times? And
Speaker 1: in the process you start to actually get to know
Speaker 1: your own psychology, start to see your own motivations, You
Speaker 1: start to see the values that drive you. And another
Speaker 1: thing that you can do is sort of ask yourself,
Speaker 1: like what difference do you want to make in the world?
Speaker 1: What about the world? Do you either it's one of
Speaker 1: two things, either what about the world do you love
Speaker 1: so much that you want everybody to have it? Or
Speaker 1: what in the world do you hate so much that
Speaker 1: you want to get rid of it and you know,
Speaker 1: keep it away from people nice? And I think through
Speaker 1: exploring that, I mean, it's it's not going to be
Speaker 1: a long conversation with yourself, but I think that when
Speaker 1: we do have that conversation with ourselves, we come to
Speaker 1: some really incredible moments, and we understand our values. We
Speaker 1: start at least to understand our value system, and we
Speaker 1: understand what kind of trade offs we want to make
Speaker 1: to make our mark on the world. To find out,
Speaker 1: like what is our uniqueness? And that's really what a
Speaker 1: lot of this is going for, is coming up with
Speaker 1: what our uniqueness is. And then we get to think about,
Speaker 1: you know, the way the world is and how we
Speaker 1: want to shape the world, and that's how we want
Speaker 1: to use that uniqueness in the world. And then we
Speaker 1: self transcend and suddenly this universe is a much richer
Speaker 1: place for the fact of our bit of dust and
Speaker 1: ashes having been on it.
Speaker 2: And well the least planet Earth. As I see the
Speaker 2: images of the deep universe, I wonder what extent we're
Speaker 2: impacting any of that. But your point is very well taken,
Speaker 2: my friend. Thank you so much Oren for being on
Speaker 2: my podcast say and for the work you've done for
Speaker 2: the field.
Speaker 1: Very much A pleasure, Thank you, Scott.
Speaker 2: My pleasure to thanks for listening to this episode of
Speaker 2: the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some
Speaker 2: way to something you heard, I encourage you to join
Speaker 2: in the discussion at Thusychology Podcast. Dot com or on
Speaker 2: our YouTube page The Psychology Podcast. We also put up
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Speaker 2: next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.