What is flowing excellence?
Excellence is the quality of being outstanding or extremely good. Flow is a state where we are not conscious of our efforts, just awake and interacting, gracefully with the task at hand.
Flowing Excellence is intended to be a journey to understand, learn, and teach the concepts, ideas, and techniques that allow us to get into this state to achieve excellence naturally.
Excellence does not need explanation. When we see an excellent piece of work, we just know it. We recognize it; we appreciate it, and we respect it. Deep down, we want to replicate it.
Using this website, I want to share the skills of optimal performance and optimal experience. Initially, I was leaning towards the domain of peak performance. But as I started creating a structure of what I intended to be a coaching program over the last couple of years, the word "peak" seemed more competitive in nature when compared to what I had in mind. "Flowing Excellence" seemed more in tune with the concept I intended to share with you all.
Flow is a term I borrowed from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book with that title. However, I have additional connotations to it. Mihaly describes flow as a state of mind that results in optimal experience - a state where the challenge of our work is in harmony with the skill required to accomplish it and that we continually find more challenging work while improving our skills. I also use the term flow in the Taoist sense. Using Allan Watts terminology, if peak performance is the art of row boating, flowing excellence is the art of sailing - where you drift with the currents.
Another way of looking at flow is to think of being unstoppable in the face of adversity. We will venture deep into the school of Stoicism to understand this philosophy later.
Finally, I also am going to borrow heavily from the literature of Karma Yoga. Karma Yoga is the philosophy where our actions are performed without the expectation or attachment for the results.
All the terms may lead us to the same path; but the journey on each path will equip us with various tools to sharpen ourselves, hone ourselves.
As with anything we do, the first question is why is this important or how is this useful?
First, producing excellent output at everything we do gives immense satisfaction. It may not be believable that this is possible, but it is a goal worth striving for as all the processes involved in it only bring good things into our life.
Second and perhaps more important is it's social implications. I personally believe that majority of the problems in the world can be solved if each one of us does our work with utmost care and dedication. We do not have to do any other social work, any other voluntary work, any other charity. Just doing our work to the best of our abilities alone may be the single most effective game changer in many areas of our life. Of course, this is easier said than done. My goal is to learn and share continuously ideas and techniques that will help us get closer to this goal; to provide concrete effective tools that will work.
Flowing Excellence is intended to be a journey to understand, learn, and teach the concepts, ideas, and techniques that allow us to get into this state to achieve excellence naturally.
Excellence does not need explanation. When we see an excellent piece of work, we just know it. We recognize it; we appreciate it, and we respect it. Deep down, we want to replicate it.
Using this website, I want to share the skills of optimal performance and optimal experience. Initially, I was leaning towards the domain of peak performance. But as I started creating a structure of what I intended to be a coaching program over the last couple of years, the word "peak" seemed more competitive in nature when compared to what I had in mind. "Flowing Excellence" seemed more in tune with the concept I intended to share with you all.
Flow is a term I borrowed from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book with that title. However, I have additional connotations to it. Mihaly describes flow as a state of mind that results in optimal experience - a state where the challenge of our work is in harmony with the skill required to accomplish it and that we continually find more challenging work while improving our skills. I also use the term flow in the Taoist sense. Using Allan Watts terminology, if peak performance is the art of row boating, flowing excellence is the art of sailing - where you drift with the currents.
Another way of looking at flow is to think of being unstoppable in the face of adversity. We will venture deep into the school of Stoicism to understand this philosophy later.
Finally, I also am going to borrow heavily from the literature of Karma Yoga. Karma Yoga is the philosophy where our actions are performed without the expectation or attachment for the results.
All the terms may lead us to the same path; but the journey on each path will equip us with various tools to sharpen ourselves, hone ourselves.
As with anything we do, the first question is why is this important or how is this useful?
First, producing excellent output at everything we do gives immense satisfaction. It may not be believable that this is possible, but it is a goal worth striving for as all the processes involved in it only bring good things into our life.
Second and perhaps more important is it's social implications. I personally believe that majority of the problems in the world can be solved if each one of us does our work with utmost care and dedication. We do not have to do any other social work, any other voluntary work, any other charity. Just doing our work to the best of our abilities alone may be the single most effective game changer in many areas of our life. Of course, this is easier said than done. My goal is to learn and share continuously ideas and techniques that will help us get closer to this goal; to provide concrete effective tools that will work.
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