Flow is an absolutely fundamental part of both business and life after business. You might not call it flow, but you sure as hell miss it when it’s gone.
The definition of flow
In lay man’s terms, ‘flow’ simply means ‘being in the zone’. One of the main reasons entrepreneurs find it difficult to let go is the constant high feeling they get when day-to-day business puts them in a flow state…. it can be seriously addictive.
The man credited with pioneering flow as a scientific concept is a psychologist called Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. This is his definition:
“Being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”
Business is a game of chess
Csikszentmihalyi did a groundbreaking study on the mental activity of chess grandmasters, mid-game, which showed a reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex part of their brains. This was highly surprising because the prefrontal cortex was universally acknowledged as the decision-making part of the brain, so why would it be less active in a game which is all about decisions? Csikszentmihalyi eventually worked out that the very best judgment comes from within – that once the human brain bypasses the constant conversation in the front of the brain, i.e. “is this the right decision? should I do this? what will people think?”, human beings are capable of their peak performance, and what’s more they feel like they are performing at their peak. This is the feeling that most of us are chasing everyday in our businesses. But how exactly does it happen?
How the flow magic happens
Flow comes where there is that perfect tension between your mind being challenged and your skills being ultimately capable of meeting that challenge. This may require you to learn something new or it may require you to draw on your existing skill set. Either way, the challenge has to be great enough to focus the mind, but not too great as to cause anxiety overload. Business naturally pushes you into challenges and you naturally crave them. See the graph below:
You may well have heard the quote “if you’re not growing, you’re dying”. Well that’s what’s happening at A2 on the graph. The state of boredom that can hit in a stagnant business can be very destructive. Likewise, too much growth and a lack of control can move the brain into A3: a permanent state of anxiousness and pressure. As you can see, the flow channel lies nicely between the two extremes.
CLICK HERE to see Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s TED Talk on Flow
The feedback loop
This whole process is exacerbated by the constant feedback that day-to-day business provides. Your state of mind is constantly being fed by the results of your actions, i.e. winning those customers, raising that investment, hitting those sales targets, expanding to those territories etc. These constant reminders of success are what gets people out of bed in the morning, and even though in reality the mere completion of a task may not necessarily equal ‘success’ in pure economic terms, this process is fundamental in the attainment of flow. Without it, there is not the incentive to perform tasks that get us into a flow state.
Life after business
We’ve established that day-to-day business poses the challenges our brain needs to achieve a flow state, and then the feedback loop above keeps the wheels turning. So what happens when you sell your company and there are suddenly no day-to-day challenges quite like the challenges your business would throw at you?
Quite often it’s a disaster. Sure, you might like golf, but it’s unlikely to be enough to get you out of that big ugly boredom triangle in the graph. When in flow you’re constantly pushing your own skill sets and simultaneously learning new ones, but once you’re out of the game, the challenges and the feedback loop are difficult to come by. This is why more than 75% of owners are unhappy a year after they have sold their company… they’re so used to getting high on the feeling of that flow state and they don’t know how to replicate it without their business.
How to make flow find you
The cruel irony of all this is that simply staying on indefinitely in business does not guarantee a place in that flow channel on the graph. While it may fight off the boredom triangle at the bottom, staying on too long can plant you right in the anxiety territory at the top. So what’s the solution?
It’s all about knowing who you are. If you know what things you do in business that put you in that flow state, then the mission is to find something outside of business that stimulates you in the same way. If you built your company off the back of a particular product you invented and built, then go out and find somewhere or something that will enable you to find the inner inventor again. If you love numbers and doing deals, go find a non-profit or some type of organization where you can help raise their finances and assist them in growing to the next level.
Don’t end up sitting on the board of a not-for-profit organization just to hand out bag lunches if that is not what gets you going. You simply won’t be stimulated and you’re doomed to fall into the 75% category!
As per Mike Gingerich’s half time podcast, it’s so so important that you take the second half of your life seriously, and do what you can to find tasks that stimulate you in the same way as they did in the first half when you were in business.
The ultimate success is to try and accomplish the same highs without the usual risks associated with business. For many people it may never be possible to find those same highs, but everyone can find something outside of the workplace that can at least help keep their mind occupied. But it’s only by understanding what helps you get into flow that you can find that ‘something’….