Tag: challenge

Seriously – what you do and who you are

Experiencing flow requires us to take some things seriously. Taking a craft or a hobby or a job seriously means we care both about developing skills and, then, testing those skills by challenging ourselves.

taking what you do seriously, serious, flow, challenge,(Thanks Wikipedia for the image and Prof Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi for the gift of “Flow”)

Since experiencing flow has been shown to be an essential part of living a fulfilled life, taking nothing seriously is a sure-shot route to unhappiness.

However, once you start taking what you do seriously, you can fall into the trap of taking yourself seriously. As we immerse ourselves in what we do and tend to identify ourselves with what we do, we can often lose sight of the lines that separate what we do and who we are; even if what we do is one of the surest expressions of who we are and what we stand for – so, the relationship is definitely complicated. However, the blurring of these lines is both trouble and a recipe for the sort of insecurity and unhappiness that accompanies a loss of perspective.

So, by all means, take your craft seriously. But, be wary of taking yourself seriously.

(Filed under “note to self” :-))

Shorter strides

The skies delivered 19 odd inches of snow in our area this weekend. Yesterday was bright and sunny and the snow had just begun to melt. I normally walk fast with as long a stride as I can muster. As I began doing that today, I felt my snow boot slip just a bit a couple of times. Cue: a change of style – I needed to take shorter strides.

It worked like a charm.

There must have been inspiration in the air as I realized right then that I’d stumbled onto an interesting learning. It begins and ends with the core idea – when in slippery territory, take shorter strides.

I think this idea has many many applications –
When low on budget in your company, design experiments with quicker feedback cycles and undertake fewer expansive projects.
In a poker game that is high stakes and “loose,” keep your money close and play tight. Weigh every move carefully.
When you’re slipping on your life’s “process,” slow down and start taking small steps towards getting back into the zone.
When you’re running out of money in your start-up, focus on your customers and cut out any additional projects (inspiring ex-entrepreneur and VC Ben Horowitz describes this as the difference between peace-time and war-time).
When in a challenging period where every second of your productivity counts, plan out every half an hour in your day carefully. Sweat the small stuff.

Summer will eventually arrive, of course. We will then be able to take longer carefree strides and try out our ambitious and expansive bets. But, not now.

Winter is all about difficult weather and slippery terrain. It is about nailing the basics and ensuring we have enough to make it till summer. For now, we’ll just focus on shorter strides..

Tim Duncan and Hurricane Hugo

Tim Duncan, then a kid in the Virgin Islands, dreamed of becoming a swimmer on the 1992 US Olympic swim team and emulate his sister. His mother instilled an incredible work ethic in him and he became a nationally ranked swimmer by age 13 in 1989.

But, hurricane Hugo swept through the Virgin Islands in 1989 and destroyed the only Olympic size pool in his home island of St Croix. Now, the only remaining place to practice swimming was the Carribean sea and this dented Tim’s enthusiasm as he was afraid of sharks. Following that, his mother died from breast cancer taking away his desire to swim.

While the Virgin Islands might have lost many a talented swimmer then, Tim began focusing on basketball thanks to encouragement from his brother-in-law. While there are few are blessed with Tim’s prodigious athletic ability, he only started playing basketball in his 9th grade – considered late by every standard. However, thanks to that work ethic and a constructive response to a tough situation, he went on to win 5 NBA championships and is often named the greatest power forward of all times.

It is safe to say that went well.

If it wasn’t for hurricane Hugo, we might perhaps have never seen Tim Duncan, the legendary basketball player. However, given his work ethic, we’d likely have seen or heard about Tim Duncan, the great swimmer.

There is no human being on the planet who doesn’t face challenges. Very few, however, respond like Tim and simply rise above them.

Thanks Tim – for showing the way, and for reminding us that it isn’t what happens to us that matters. It all comes down to how we respond.

7% better – The 200 words project

Here’s this week’s 200 word idea from our RealLeaders.tv interview with Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi..

Social scientist and author of the now legendary book on happiness – “Flow,” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and team spent a week collecting data from a group of internet chess players who played over 1000 games.

They had the players fill out how much “flow” they felt in the game afterwards. All previous psychological theories spoke about play as a way of boosting self esteem by winning. But, Prof Mihaly and team’s hypothesis was that greatest enjoyment doesn’t come from winning but from playing opponents who are equally matched – so skill levels and challenges are equal (i.e. in “flow” territory).

Flow
Source and thanks to: www.EBSketchin.com

Interestingly, the results showed that the optimal challenge was when the opponent was about 7% better. Playing against better players meant the curve of enjoyment went down very slowly while playing against really bad players meant enjoyment went down precipitously. The point is clearly not to just win because, when we play against someone better, we win only 30% of the time but when we do win, we feel much better.

Are we regularly giving ourselves challenges that are 7% harder than our current skill level?

“Happiness is not something that is guaranteed, or that comes with our birth certificates. Happiness is to do things that are harmonious with who we are, with what we can do, with what we like, and with what we think is right.” | Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi