Flourish FM Episode # 10: Flow & Flourishing Part 1: The Flow State
This is the first of a two-part series on the relationship between flourishing and flow - the psychological state of optimal experience and performance. Research suggests that experiencing flow significantly enhances our well-being.
In this episode, we talk to Dr Carol Grojean and Dr Brent Hogarth about the flow state and its relationship to flourishing.
As a Leadership professional in the areas of Organizational Effectiveness, Project Management, and Transformational Change, Dr Carol Grojean has spent the past 20 years’ guiding large, complex, strategic initiatives. Carol is adept at designing and implementing programs which drive strategic business and organizational culture shifts through building trust and delivering results. With extensive business process, project, and program management skillset built on 3 Masters degrees and a Ph.D. in organizational systems psychology: leadership and social transformation as well as wilderness rite of passage guiding, council facilitating, and peace mediation training. Carol brings a unique and much-needed perspective on the human behavior in human systems, focused on building cultures where individuals at all levels can bring their distinct, creative talents to their roles while providing the necessary skills to the whole system values and vision.
Dr. Brent Hogarth is a Sport and Clinical Psychologist from Vancouver, Canada. He is an expert in training flow-state, mindfulness, and self-control for both sport and corporate athletes. Brent has significant training and experience providing performance enhancement and mental health counseling. This includes, but is not limited to, working with Olympic and professional athletes, serial entrepreneurs, members of the USA military, computer engineers, authors, hedge fund managers and more. Brent's clinical counseling experience is vast, and he sees everyone as having the ability to be a high-performer. He completed his Doctoral fellowships at the University of Texas, at El Paso, and Lehigh University, in Bethlehem, PA. After a short stint as a fitness trainer, he traveled to India where he lived in a Buddhist Monastery and completed a Yoga Teacher training Course. It was at this moment - sitting in meditation on the hills of McLeod Ganj, India - that Brent committed to becoming a psychologist. Dr. Hogarth is a Humanistic-Existential psychologist. His theoretical orientation is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). ACT uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies, together with commitment and behavior change strategies, to increase psychological flexibility. Psychological flexibility means contacting the present moment fully, and based on what the situation affords, changing or persisting in behavior in the service of clients’ chosen values.
Key conversation points:
- The place of flow in human flourishing
- Why focusing on integration of the self and experience is important for flow: “doing” vs. “being”, and integrating the “me” with the “we”
- Why it’s important for getting into flow to not try to get into flow, but rather to “let go”
- The importance of embracing and engaging in a process of struggle to get into flow
- The importance of being aware of the potential dark side of flow