[Neurons] 2021 Neurons #7 WE CALL IT SYNERGY

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2021 Neurons #7

February 15, 2021

The Flow State #1

 

WE CALL IT SYNERGY

 

In 1994 I not only discovered the Meta-States Model, I also discovered an
immediate and incredibly powerful application- an application that changed
my life and one that hundreds of Trainers are training all around the world.
I discovered the strategy of flow.  Now in NLP at that time we did not call
it flow, we called it genius.  We also called it expertise or excellence.
That was what we modeled- mastery of a given activity.

 

Grinder and DeLozier had worked on "the prerequisites of genius" in their
classic book, Turtles all the Way Down.  Robert Dilts had worked on the
"Strategies of Genius" in his three-volume series by that title.  Both
quoted Bateson's work on meta-levels and asserted that the secret, whatever
it is, inherently involves meta-levels.

 

Then using the Meta-States Model, I took their work and the variables that
these NLP founders had identified and simply meta-stated them.  The pattern
that I worked out became the "Accessing Personal Genius" pattern that I
first ran on myself and then started teaching.  Eventually I designed the
training that we call APG, Accessing Personal Genius. 

 

Now most fundamentally, "genius" or flow or expertise is a state.  It is an
optimal state of being at your best because you are singularly focused on
what you are doing so that you are all there.  You are not distracted or
torn by competing interests.  You are not multi-tasking.  You are completely
engaged in one thing.  That's why you have fuller access to all of your
mental and emotional resources which, in turn, seems to amplify your
problem-creating skills and your creativity.  Plus, it is inherently
exciting and fun to be so "on," so much "in the zone."

 

I mentioned that one of the first things I did was apply it to myself.  My
first "genius" state of flow was reading.  Why?  Because in those years I
often found myself at the end of a page, and not having the slightest idea
what I had read.  I was somewhere else.  I had lost focus and now I had to
read the page all over again.  So I built my first "genius reading state."
Next, I built a "genius writing state."  Why?  Because I found myself often
stuck and suffering writer's block.

 

Once I did that, I suddenly found myself with an incredibly high reading
comprehension, one that I had only experienced on unique occasions.  One
that ordinarily I could not replicate.  And just as suddenly, I found myself
free to write and not suffering writer's block.  In fact, I haven't had
writer's block since 1994. 

 

So, how do you get there?  What is the strategy for how to turn on the flow
state and operate at your best?  It turns out to be a meta-stating process.
Actually, a pretty simple one.  Typically most people can fully run the
pattern in thirty-minutes.  You start with your primary state, the state
that you need to be in to do what you want to do - a reading state, a
writing state, a presenting state, a listening state, a coaching state, a
dancing state, a running state, whatever the state is.  You then set up a
barrier between when you are in the state and when you step out of the
state.  In this way you protect the state.  Then your very physiology
incorporates the state and because it does, it anchors the state.  Now your
body "knows" the state.  It is embodied kinesthetically. Athletes do this
all the time.

 

Once you set up the state boundaries, and you can step in and out
instantaneously, you can screen out things which are irrelevant so that you
can focus your awareness and attention on what you are doing.  Next, we
spend a little bit of time focusing on the activity of the flow state- the
expertise you are developing.  How do you do it?  What skills are involved?
What competencies?  What is the strategy that you're using? 

 

Next comes the framing stage.  Giving yourself to the experience in your
imagination, you allow the facilitator to ask a series of questions which
you answer with your executive prefrontal cortex.  Each answer establishes
more of the boundaries of the genius state, when to have it, where, with
whom, etc. 

 

Finally, comes the commissioning.  You check for quality control so that it
fits well with the ecology of your system and then allow the strategy that
you've created as a "program" to be commissioned.  Then your unconscious
mind can allow it to run without you having to focus on it.  You're free to
focus exclusively at the primary level on what you are doing.

 

With the Accessing Personal Genius pattern you create a unity between your
highest meanings and values and your best performances.  In Neuro-Semantics
this is the Meaning axis (vertical axis) and the Performance axis
(horizontal).   When Csikszentmihalyi developed his flow model, he called
the meaning axis challenge and he called the performance axis skill.  Then
he noted that "flow" was a function of the integration of the
challenge/skill ratio.  He diagramed it so that it comprised "the flow
zone."  In the Meaning/Performance diagram, we call that same zone- the zone
of synergy.  Here you have integrated meaning (challenge) with your
performance (skill).  Now you are "in the zone."

Today everybody knows about being "in the zone," being in flow, and in the
flow zone.  What many do not realize is that this is the pathway to
expertise, to accelerated learning, and to self-actualization.  If you want
to master something, you have to take what is a challenge or meaningful to
you and integrate it into your actual skills, your skillful performance.  Do
that and you are on your way to developing expertise in your field.

 

Now you know that there is a step-by-step process for how to get there.  We
have demystified flow in Neuro-Semantics.  And that's what the APG training
is all about.   It is what Neuro-Semantic trainers train and what
Meta-Coaches coach.

 

The pattern itself (Accessing Personal Genius) is in the APG training manual
on "The Shop" and also in the book, Secrets of Personal Mastery.

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, Neuro-Semantics

P.O. Box 8

Clifton CO. 81520 USA

www.neurosemantics.com 

 

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