The Flowstate Principles Podcast

Guest post by Steve Hord

Today I am interviewing an ultimate flow-seeker. His name is Chris ‘Douggs’ Mcdougall. Douggs is a Professional BASE Jumper with over 18 years in the sport. He has completed over 3400 BASE jumps to date, with over 1000 of them being in a wingsuit. He as also competed the World BASE championships, is an aerial specialist and operates a first BASE jump course in Switzerland where he currently lives with his amazing wife, and good friend of mine- Jenny.

You’ll really want to listen in as we delve into what it’s like to be a professional wingsuit BASE jumper, why he throws himself off cliffs and how Douggs builds his life around flow states. Learn how to make your life more engaging, more meaningful and find your ‘fast-paced yoga’. Somehow we also find time to talk gamification, philosophy and the importance of community. This episode is chock-full with solid gold. Enjoy

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." - Leonardo da Vinci In this 10 minute "Flow Nugget", I discuss how minimalism relates to lifestyle design, why it benefits us to bring simplicity...

The post TFPP 005: How to design Your life for Flow states through minimalism and simplicity appeared first on Flowstate Collective.

 

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” — Leonardo da Vinci

In this 10 minute “Flow Nugget”, I discuss how minimalism relates to lifestyle design, why it benefits us to bring simplicity and remove (some) choice from our lives, and how we can do this to achieve more states of flow.

If everyday you stripped down your life so that it contained:

1. something for survival

2. something that drives your purpose

3. something that is fun

What would happen?

Let me tell you a story about 2 crazy, but awesome Norwegian adventurers and how they stripped down life to the bare essentials, and in doing so found profound joy and purpose.

I also give you 4 simple ways to add more minimalism and flow to your daily life. Enjoy the nugget!

Epic quotes

“The People who experience most flow in their lives have in common the deliberate removal of choice from their daily lives.” [Tweet this]

“The paradox of choice is that when we have too much of it, we become trapped in a net of decision-making” [Tweet this]

“Want to flow? Choose your core activities and don’t just commit to them- build your life around them” [Tweet this]

Useful links

North of the Sun– documentary film

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Taki Moore, Coach of coaches

Wunderlist : app to create to do lists and track them on all devices

List of apps to harness technology for more flow

 Prefer to read than listen?

Today I will talk about an aspect of lifestyle design, than can have massive effects on your ability to live in flow.

The dictionary defines minimalism as: “Use of the fewest and barest essentials or elements, as in the arts, literature, or design”….

I think our Lifestyle design can follow these same principles.

It is my observation, that People who experience most flow in their lives have in common the deliberate removal of choice from their daily lives.

Micro-minimalism

I just did some training with a legendary coach, Taki Moore, who has 15 identical black t-shirts in his closet. Why? To remove that choice of what to wear… so he can focus on more important things.

I know people who eat the same 2 meals every day…  or strip down their training so bare that they always know exactly what they have to do.

I call this micro-minimalism- removing choice in targeted areas of your life… and it can definitely save you a lot of unnecessary thought.

There is less leakage of mental, or psychic energy.

From the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep, we are faced with hundreds, maybe thousands of choices and decisions.

white tshirt, red tshirt, fried eggs of scrambled, run or swim, flat white or latte…

Here is the paradox: In our society we see choice as a luxury, as an indicator of our level of freedom.  

We tend to think that the more choice we have, the better our life is.

But the paradox of choice is that  when we have too much of it, we become entangled in a net of decision making… which can hamper our ability to flow through life smoothly.

So I think we can all help ourselves out by looking for ways we can add micro-minimalism to our lives.. like choosing one website where we buy flights, or choosing one expert on nutrition… .. or choosing 5 meals that we rotate when we cook..

Advait Shinde is going places. I believe he is a true visionary and futurist, and we will be seeing a lot more of him in the growing debate around technology...

The post TFPP 004: Advait Shinde on flow states, elite performance culture and the future of technology and education appeared first on Flowstate Collective.

Advait Shinde is going places. I believe he is a true visionary and futurist, and we will be seeing a lot more of him in the growing debate around technology and education.  He co-founded GoGuardian, after graduating from UCLA and being hired by Google. His time at Google heavily influenced his views on leadership, company culture and performance. Advait feels that the success of Google can be attributed to the incredible vision of Larry Page and Sergey Brin and the culture they crafted of uncompromising excellence and meritocracy.

In this episode we discuss flow states while coding, how Google maintain that culture of excellence, and how technology will be harnessed to benefit future generations of children to have optimised and engaging learning experiences.

Download Transcript 

Epic quotes

 

“We’ve really reached the point where an individual can contribute and make impactful contributions to the actual business just with code.” 

“In an ordinary company like people will expect to get fired by asking those sorts of things like they get asked like questioning fundamental strategy and calling out actual leaders for their past actions. But it’s brilliant because nothing is off the table.”

“What Google represents in my mind is like the revenge of the nerds. You got like super smart engineers and this is their time, this is their place, and they’re really the driving force behind the biggest, most successful, valuable companies on earth.”

“Like there’s free food, massages, lots of beer, and whenever you bring a guest there everybody’s comment is, “How do people actually get work done here. This is just absurd?” 

“You look around you and there’s people walking around you who have fundamentally changed the trajectory of computer science.” [Tweet this]

“If you get the best problem solvers and put them in a room together and allow them to bounce ideas off each other, you basically get what Google has got” 

“The simple equation is- remove the obstacles and you will flow. It seems to me like Google cracked that code.” [Tweet this]

“I think it’s the silliest thing to have textbooks. These non interactive, boring pieces of paper” [Tweet this]

“The pessimist will look at this as a failure of this new digital age and how it’s terrible and how this bar for stimulation is way too high but I like to challenge and flip that on it’s head basically say that I think that the screens are around forever, they’re gonna stay and so we need to bring everything else up to par.”

“In 10 or a hundred years from now, there’s no way you can say screens are gonna be a bad thing. You’re just on the wrong side of that battle.” [Tweet this]

“Good music, large cup of coffee and no interruptions…just me and the computer…  several hours of just pure flow.” [tweet this]

 

 

 

In this episode:

 

02:18 One of those kids writing code at 8 years old

4:17 Coding as a path to flow states

5:37  The classical career path for Tech geeks

Steve Hord from the Flowstate Performance Podcast gives his first flow nugget. He jumps straight into what the podcast is about, shares a touching story about hitting his lowest low...

The post TFPP 003: Introduction to Steve Hord, and his path to flow appeared first on Flowstate Collective.

Rhyn Nasser is absolute legend of a man. He has had a profound impact on my life. He is is a Kung­Fu master, Qi Gong expert, and coach to 7­-figure...

The post TFPP 002: Rhyn Nasser: Martial Arts, flow states and Entrepreneur performance appeared first on Flowstate Collective.

 

Introducing The Flowstate Performance Podcast, Jiro Taylor and Steve Hord discuss how this will deliver maximum inspiration and ideas for you to achieve states of flow and peak performance. In this short episode we explain what the show is about, how and why it will be awesome and helpful for those looking for more flow in life! We will be releasing exclusive interviews with peak performers in various fields on Mondays, and offering shorter “Flow Nuggets” on Fridays.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download the PDF Transcription

In the episode:

* 00: What this is about in a nutshell

* 20: How to live a life of flow

* 40: How Jiro began his flow journey

* 09: What connects meditation, psychology, peak performance, surfing, adventure, psychedelics, adventures..

* 55: Flow is about your state of consciousness, and therefore about everything in life

* 09: As Steve Kotler says: “Flow creates flow”

* 13: Designing life around flow

* 30: Chained to a desk, in a skyscraper, to responsibility, living someone else’s version of success

* 15: Steve felt trapped and enslaved to society

* 30: Flow is what keeps you evolving

 

Epic quote:

“Most of all this is going to be real… because we’re actually designing our lives around flow.” [Click to Tweet]

 

Useful Links:

* Find out more about Jiro Taylor, and his coaching for entrepreneurs here

* Find out more about Steve Hord, and his wellness coaching business here 

 

Download the PDF Transcription

Transcription:

Jiro: Welcome to the Flowstate Performance Podcast, I am Jiro Taylor – and I am Steve Hord. Alright this is show 000, this is our chance to tell you exactly who we are, why are we doing this, what the value is going to be for you guys and why you don’t want to miss this show.

Steve: Yep, Flowstate Performance is going to be epic, as Jiro says, this is episode 000, we’re just doing a quick info of who we are, what we’re about, what you can hope to achieve from it, and where you can follow us from here.

Jiro: Cool man. So Steve, please explain to us what The Flowstate Performance Podcast is in a nutshell.

Steve: Cool man. So basically we’ve created this podcast for entrepreneurs, health enthusiasts, adventurers, other trainers, creatives and all other types of flow seekers. It’s for anyone who dreams to achieve self-mastery and thrive in their life.

Jiro: Awesome. And so,