Do not read this if you are in the flow
I can’t stop reading this book.
Tony Schwartz: ‘The brain is actually unable to multitask.’
The co-author of Donald Trump‘s #1 international bestsellerThe Art of the Deal is Tony Schwartz. More recently, he wrote What Really Matters.
He really nails it.
Why the old model is broken
Things we’re not doing right in American corporate culture:
- Being engaged
- Feeling valued
- Getting enough rest
- Taking enough breaks
- Valuing focused time to reflect
- Realizing number of hours spent at a desk doesn’t equate to value
His book is about real-life stories of helping transform corporate leaders. CEOs and executives around the country now eat healthy snacks and take walks thanks to this guy’s suggestions.
They don’t lash out as much.
They spend more time with their families.
They’re happier.
What we can learn from athletes and performers: creative flow
Just think about any great performer in action. You need only to watch the eyes of an athlete… to ee just how locked in and singularly focused they are. It’s no different for a heart surgeon, a fighter pilot, a ballet dancer, or an attorney delivering closing arguments in a courtroom. All of their attention—their cognitive energy—is concentrated on the task at hand. It’s the capacity to keep other distractions at bay, even under fierce ressure, that helps set them apart from less skilled practitioners.
The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi named this kind of absorbed focus “flow” and defined it simply as “the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter.” The ability to control our attention, he argues, is fundamental to optimal performance and also to the highest levels of satisfaction. —Tony Schwartz, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working
Here he is speaking to Google.