Individual Flow Trigger: Challenge-Skills Balance
Individual Flow Trigger: Challenge-Skills Balance
How to bend but not break with flow
This week I’m breaking down what flow triggers are, the golden rule of flow triggers, and real word examples of it being applied.
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Welcome to the new and improved 2I&B Lifeletter!
I took a well needed break to rebrand and dial in on what student-athletes really need to get from this lifeletter.
And we’re starting off with weekly dives into the 22 flow triggers.
But first…a quick recap…
Flow Triggers
Peak Performance is backed by studies done in the neuroscience field and it’s defined as getting our biology to work for us rather than against us. This is primarily done by initiating an optimal state of consciousness called "Flow" where we feel our best and perform our best. You may know this state as "runner's high", "being unconscious", or "being in the zone".
Flow refers to moments of rapt attention and total absorption when we get so focused on the task at hand that everything else seems to disappear, action and awareness merge, our sense of self vanishes, time passes strangely, and performance just soars.
Research has shown that these peak performance flow strategies can increase productivity by 500%, provide 3 days of heightened creativity after experiencing a flow state, improve skill acquisition/learning by 490%, and increase creative problem-solving by 430%.
Flow is ubiquitous and universal and it shows up in anyone and anywhere provided that certain initial conditions are met. These conditions are called Flow Triggers and they are 22 things evolution shaped our brain to pay attention to and enable survival.
These flow triggers are broken down into 2 categories: Individual Triggers and Group/Social Triggers (what I refer to as Team Triggers of course).
Individual: Challenge-Skills Balance, High Consequences, Curiosity/Passion/Purpose, Autonomy, Complete Concentration, Clear Goals, Immediate Feedback, Novelty, Complexity, Unpredictability, Deep Embodiment, and Creativity.
Team: Complete Concentration, Shared Clear Goals, Shared Risk, Close Listening, Good Communication, Familiarity, Blended Egos, Sense of Control, Equal Participation, and Always Say Yes.
There are many more out there but these are the 22 scientists have established to date.
And we’re starting with the most important one of them all…
Challenge-Skills Balance
The challenge-skills balance is the most important of flow triggers, and it’s worth reviewing why. Flow demands task-specific focus. Or as my mentor Steven Kotler puts it: flow follows focus.
We pay attention to the task at hand when the challenge of that task slightly exceeds our skill set. If the challenge is too great, fear swamps the system. If the challenge is too easy, we stop paying attention. Flow appears near, but not on, the emotional midpoint between boredom and anxiety, in what scientists call “the flow channel.”
It’s the spot where the task is hard enough to make us stretch but not hard enough to make us snap.
How I Use Challenge-Skills Balance 😎
My Life After Sports transition ended when I landed a sales job at the age of 22.
I was a big introvert and had poor communication skills before sales. And in the beginning, the speech impediment I had as a toddler would always creep up on me and I would sound like Mushmouth from Fat Albert’s Junkyard Gang—or a mumble rapper before they became a thing.
My District Manager always challenged me to improve my communication skills. He constantly told me to use my “Obama voice” or my “sports broadcaster voice.” But even with this skill improved, I still struggled in sales, at first.
It wasn’t until I truly grasped the concepts of the skill. I wasn’t manipulating the customer, I was serving them. The focus wasn’t solely on taking money from them; yet, it was to add value where money was the byproduct. And no matter what the scenario is in life, I’m either selling: a product, a service, an idea, or myself.
With this perspective shift and leveling up in multiple skills, I started to accumulate sales and “flow” up the ranks in the office.
How The Greats Use Challenge-Skills Balance 🤌🏾
Kobe Bryant proudly stated during a press conference; “We’re fortunate that Allen Iverson isn’t 6’5, otherwise it would have been over for the league. Pack up and goodbye.”
That’s what the late great Kobe Bryant had to say about my GOAT, AI.
The challenge of guarding Iverson dropped him right near that emotional midpoint.
Kobe Bryant was constantly looking to exceed slightly past his skillset—whether it was a last-second decision to join Team USA’s “The Redeem Team”, coach GiGi’s basketball team, or even start a media company.
“The Biles”—landing maneuvers in competition nobody else would even attempt. Yes, Simone Biles stretched herself to the point her name became a move.
And as of recently, we’ve seen her take precautions to make sure she doesn’t snap.
Do you want to know the simplified way Serena Williams won 39 major titles—23 in singles, 14 in women’s doubles, and 2 in mixed doubles—over the course of close to 3 decades? She challenged herself to chase the feeling she felt while winning her first title at 17 years old. That had to be an amazing flow state!
This Week’s Book Recommendation📖
Everything I know about peak performance and neuroscience started from being introduced to Steven Kotler and reading his book “The Art of Impossible”. If you’re interested in going down the rabbit hole on the technical scientific aspects of what I write about, this book is for you!
Last Words…
If you don’t remember anything from this edition, just in mind flow follows focus.
If our brain automatically pays more attention when we’re challenged, this means that easy isn’t fun!
This reveals the neuroscience behind the phrase, “pressure is a privilege”.
The drawn our phrase should be, “pressure enables us to challenge ourselves to the point where our skills have to level up, which helps drop us into flow, which is a privilege.
Hope this added the fuel to ferociously launch your week! ♾️🔥🚀
See you next Monday! 😎
And when it comes to the infinite game of life…
Choose Flow.
Be Brilliant.
Ball Out.
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