[Neurons] 2018 Neurons #2 Searching for the Optimal State

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2018 Neurons #2

January 8, 2018

 

 

SEARCHING FOR THE OPTIMAL STATE

 

>From the beginning, NLP called the optimal state-the "genius" state.  I
don't know who started that.  Judith DeLozier and John Grinder popularized
it in Turtles All the Way Down (1985) from their 1983 workshop.  Robert
Dilts did a modeling project on actual geniuses and wrote his series of
books, Strategies of Genius.  Anyway "genius" became the NLP word for the
optimal flow state.

 

In 1990 Csikszentmihalyi's studies on "happiness" led to his naming the
state flow and he then followed that up with many studies as well as books
on flow.  That was his popularization term for what Abraham Maslow had
termed "peak experience" some 40 years prior.  And in the domain of sports,
the most popular term has been, and continues to be, "in the zone."  All of
these terms and phrases are different ways of talking about the one's very
state for a given activity.

 

More recently Steven Kotler has explored the state of flow in his book, The
Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance (2014)
which he repeated with co-author, Peter Diamondis in Bold: How to Go Big,
Achieve Success, and Impact the World (2015).  In these books they have some
valuable things to say about flow.

"Csikszentmihalyi ... is a more pedestrian version of Maslow's inquiry.  The
ones who felt their lives had the most meaning were those who had the most
peak experiences.  It often involved an element of novelty and discovery.
...    Csikszentmihalyi renamed peak experiences- flow." (2014, p. 20)

"McKensey found top executives reported being up to five times more
productive when in flow.  Creativity and cooperation are also amplified."
(Ibid. p. 21)

 

Kotler even gives a lot of attention to the neurochemistry and the brain
autonomy involved in flow.  Here is a sample:

In flow, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is also deactivated, an area of
self-monitoring and impulse control.  Flow also activates the medial
prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain that governs self-expression.  The
brain release a number of powerful painkillers that deaden us to the damage
being done and allows us to push our maximal strength closer to its
boundary.  In the hypofrontality, the same events that create our sense of
self also distort our sense of time; temporal awareness is calculated by
multiple areas of the brain working together.

 

But there is a problem.  In The Rise of Superman he focused almost entirely
on those athletes who are engaged in extreme sports.  And while the reading
of the young men who push the limits of the human body in rock climbing,
jumping off cliffs, running, skiing, etc. is exciting, even mesmerizing- it
leaves several false impressions.  The first is that to get into flow, to
access this wonderful optimal state, you have to engage in doing something
extreme and dangerous.  In this, the book is not balanced and over-stresses
the importance of danger, high consequence environment, and risk as key flow
triggers.

 

That's just not so.  Csikszentmihalyi's studies provide a far more balanced
approach.  While he included some examples of extreme sports, he also wrote
about playing chess, reading, writing, etc.  The optimal state is not only,
or even mainly, a function of getting your nervous systems into a revved up
state.  Flow is actually more about one's state of mind- attention,
intention, purpose, etc.- than about a physiological state of intense
arousal.

 

Another false impression is that it takes both the intense physiological
state and a period of time, like twenty minutes, to get into the flow state.
The idea is that you have to work up to it.  You have to rev up the body in
preparation.  This is what many of the extreme athletes described and talked
about.  

 

Our experience in Neuro-Semantics is the very opposite.  Like any state, the
optimal state of flow is a function of preparing your mind and body to be in
your best state and once there, then that state of mind, body, and emotion
is a state that can be anchored.  And if it can be anchored, then it can be
called forth very quickly.  That's what we refer to when we say it allows
you to have the flow state at your command.  For most things (reading,
writing, speech, etc.), I can turn it on within seconds.

 

This is what we do in the "accessing personal genius" state that we train in
the APG training.  We prepare a person with the prerequisites of genius-
those foundational requirements so that you can put it together and then
turn it on and off at your command.  The NLP premise behind this is that if
you know how you create a mental-emotional state, and you set up the
required frames and triggers, then you can have it whenever you choose in a
moment.  You do not have to sit around waiting for it and you do not have to
get your body into a revved up state.

 

Csikszentmihalyi enabled us to recognize the flow zone as that sweet spot
between challenge and skill.  Take what you understand about some activity
and act on it, developing your skill at the challenge-appropriate level.  Do
that repeatedly, and you will find yourself in the flow zone-lost in that
valued engagement and getting better at it.  Here meaning and performance
comes together into a synergy.  Here your intention and your attention
synergy to close the knowing-doing gap.  Here your attention comes to the
here-and-now fully and you become of one-mind about what you are doing.  Now
you are in the flow or genius state of full engagement.

 

 

Books related to this:

 
In the Zone by Tim Goodenough and Mike Cooper                  

                            Secrets of Personal Mastery.

 

See  <http://www.neurosemantics.com/> www.neurosemantics.com / Products /
Neuro-Semantic Books

 

 

 

Neuro-Semantic News

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L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

               Neuro-Semantics Executive Director 

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO. 81520 USA                             

               1 970-523-7877 

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