Showing posts with label Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Ted Tuesday: Flow, The Secret to Happiness by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“What makes us really happy?” He refers to the research that money can not make us happy and looks to those who find pleasure and lasting satisfaction in activities that bring about a state of “flow.







Good Morning Folks,

Leave it to your Chief Happiness officer to for you an inspiring keynote about Happiness that four million people have already seen and raved about, and I bet you haven't.


So appropriate to the peace and serenity I find when I visit Napa for a few days as I write from here now. I always leave Napa and return to the City with my own "flow" in check.

Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi asks, "What makes a life worth living?" Noting that money cannot make us happy, he looks to those who find pleasure and lasting satisfaction in activities that bring about a state of "flow."

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives. A leading researcher in positive psychology, he has devoted his life to studying what makes people truly happy: “When we are involved in [creativity], we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life.” He is the architect of the notion of “flow”– the creative moment when a person is completely involved in an activity for its own sake.

In this TEDx Talk Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi asks, “What makes us really happy?” He refers to the research that money can not make us happy and looks to those who find pleasure and lasting satisfaction in activities that bring about a state of “flow.”



He also refers to:
  • how the nervous system is unable to process more than approximately 110bits of information per second, and
  • difference examples of flow from a figure skater, a business man, Anita Roddick (the Body Shop) and Masaru Ibuka (Sony).
  • The presentation is summed up on the slide (at 14mins), called How does it feel to be in flow?
Completely involved in what you are doing – focused, concentrated,
  • A sense of ecstasy – of being outside everyday reality,
  • Greater inner clarity – knowing what needs to be done and how well we are doing,
  • Knowing that the activity is doable – that our skills are adequate to the task,
  • A sense of serenity – no worries about oneself and a feeling of growing beyond the boundaries of the ego,
  • Timelessness – thoroughly focused on the present, hours seem to pass by in minutes, and
  • Intrinsic motivation – whatever produces flow becomes its own reward.
If you are interested in his work, his books include Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (Masterminds Series), and Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention.

Thanks to Habits For Well Being for their inspirations preparing this post, to TED and of course to you for listening.


Let's all go make things happen today. I look forward to seeing you soon.

Love Life!


Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer  


Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form.TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE

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