My 25+ years of practice leadership development and management theory make me share with you what is the most important question in life. Many of you might have read it already in one of the best books of the past 3 decades, The Evolving Self by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1993):
Given the level of habituality that we humans exhibit and give that much of these habits come two main influences or legacies that we inherit – our genes and our VABEs (Values, attitudes, beliefs and expectations = memes) – will YOU or any other individual ever be anything more than a vessel transmitting the genes and memes of previous generations on to the next?
The ‘Evolving Self’ is presented as a sequel to Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s influential 1990 bestseller which summarized his many years of research into the nature of happiness. In the book, Csikszentmihalyi observed that the activities which give us the most satisfaction in life are those that engage our psychic energy in increasingly complex and challenging tasks, such as mountain-climbing, painting, playing an instrument, figure-skating, or solving a difficult business problem. When we are in “Flow,” the activity involves, concentrates, and absorbs the body and mind and we lose our awareness of time.
In The Evolving Self, Csikszentmihalyi looks beyond happiness to consider what we need to grow as individuals and as a society.
Dr. Zoltan Buzady, Director, Leadership & Flow Global Research Network zoltan@buzady.hu
May The #Flow Be With You – Zoltan