Mihály Csíkszentmihályi: Flow

The study dedicated to the feeling of perfection, based on the psychology of the life’s joy was written in 1991, by the American writer with Hungarian origins. Csíkszentmihályi is a noble pursuer of the positive psychological school, founded by Hans Selye in the 1950’s.

What’s the secret of the book’s unrivalled success? It deals with the ancient dilemma of whether work activities can be really enjoyable, whether it’s possible for a person to enjoy duties, and lastly it explores whether this joy is dependent on other external circumstances such as material preconditions.

Since Aristotle human kind wants to define the secret of happiness, but the question has been left unanswered despite technological developments and increasing social prosperity.Csíkszentmihályi’s research that spanned a quarter of a century concluded that the joy of life, in other words, the root to happiness cannot be found externally, but must be sought inside, within ourselves. Those who are receptive to the ability of flow, who possess the power of concentration in their mind are capable of maintaining their mental self-control even in exceptional circumstances.

A wonderful example of mental survival is István Papp’s case, a civil employee of NATO, who was freed from Sudanese imprisonment in January. His secret must lie in his powers over his conscious, which enabled him to retain his internal poise and sanity, despite being kept hostage in poor undermining conditions, like „a chained dog”.

We tend to attribute and blame the external circumstances for our unhappiness and emptiness of our lives. But should we assign it to the unfriendliness of the world and helplessly suffer our destiny?

Nevertheless, unfriendliness in the world is not bound to this century only!

What can we do to ensure that our children are able to experience the joy of flow and face the challenges of life? Csíkszentmihályi suggests five base conditions, to ensure that our children will be happy and satisfied throughout their lives – and these have almost nothing to do with being wealthy!

If we bring our children up with clear expectations, let them bask in the light of our attention, assuring security, raising them in an atmosphere of acceptance, and we give them the power of choice, allowing them to explore their own path, then we have created ideal surroundings for the child to become a happy adult – as Csikszentmihályi says.

Dr. Terry Lyles: Good Stress

The famous American stress Doctor describes this phenomenon as the source of life’s energy and creativity, analyzing this area also from Selye’s positive approach, focusing on the inspiring effect of controlled and well tolerated stress.

The writer himself has his own demons to deal with, a crushing blow that defines his life – the raising of his handicapped child, Brendon for the past two decades. The sorrow, pain and hopelessness, as he descibes is a „grief”, but he considers it still cathartic - as he became a better man owing to this!

He emphasizes the fact that the fight against negative energies, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, are all of significance to live our lives in a fulfilling and happy way, when fighting with blows, scars and suffering.

Using an analogy that is understood well by everyone, he mentions an example like maintaining a car and filling its tank, demonstrating the importance of safeguarding our energy levels.

Being successful is not dependent on pure luck, it is about being prepared for the challenges life, as he says! He deems it significant in this chapter, to emphasize the parents’ responsibility for their children. A healthy, confident, child with a stable character, adaptible to all situations will develop into a healthy adult who performs well, if the child is brought up with consistent and loving discipline in addition to certain necessary rules and restrictions. The parent’s responsibility should not be to experience just power above the child, it should be about love and consistency, without resentment and temper.

In conclusion it is the richness and quality of the social relationships around, that turns stress into something inspiring, good stress. As he denotes, very similarly to Selye’s approach we have to return to the old truth „Love your neighbour as yourself”.

There is no doubt that the quality and depth of human relations contribute to the growth of our stress-tolerance!

Hans Selye: The Stress of Life

This book is also an almost timeless piece, still very valid even if it was first published in 1956, written by Hans Selye, a Biologist researcher from Montreal, with Hungarian origins.

Nowadays tremendous literature is devoted to the topic of stress and plenty books may be found in abundance about stress. But still, Selye’s findings are of relevance even today. All theories as well as all schools of stress base their work on Selye’s earlier studies and definitions. His researches all equated to breakthroughs in an area, which had been in its infance those times. This early book is anyway still captivating, describing a scientific breakthrough discovery in style that even general public can follow. The author offers his study for those ones who, „do not fear sensing their entire life’s stresses, and who do not expect, that this can be carried out without the exertion of mental powers.”

As the founder of the „positive-stress school”, he says that, the very same stress that leads to illness in one person, may be an empowering force for someone „who moulds himself successfully to the continually changing life conditions of the Planet.”

He summarizes the essence of his theory in a wonderfully eloquent way, saying that „a person who does not adequately master the skills of adaptation, will pay the penalty with illness and unhappiness.” His scientific breakthrough, and exceptional discovery was the definition of the symptoms of stress, the so-called „general adaptation syndrome”, summarized in its Biological-Medical description. This was defined after focusing on the puzzling question, as to whether a live organism reacts exactly the same way, universally and generally to differing and specific adversities, so called stressors.

Stress is not perceived by him as a detriment to be avoided, he emphasizes that it is essential, it is „the pepper and salt of life”. He suggests that we should be well aware of the upper limits of our stress tolerance, and our adaptation energies must be used for important purposes.

„Keep on fighting, if there is a noble objective, but do not fight, if it has no worth” – this poetic piece of advice is repeated on numerous pages, highlighting the fact that our lives are in our hands, and we must take responibility for it. (Saying so, we should not try to change others, but alternatively change ourselves, if necessary.)

He had his research as a Biologist, however his findings surpassed the realms of the physical, and biological sphere, and contributed greatly to psychological, and sociological areas by calling our attention to the significance of self-realisation and human empathy.

The secret of stress handling is suggested by him referencing the main biblical thought, of „love your neighbour as yourself”, interpreted in his own words like: „Live your life in a way to earn other people’s love.”

It is indeed inspiring to read what he describes about the importance of self-esteem, about the crucial skill to cope with failure, about the threats of emotional hurt – and as a Biologist, as an expert of the material world how does he come to indisputable conclusions concerning areas that go far beyond the scope of material.

Dale Carnegie: How to Win Friends and Influence People

"How to win Friends and Influence People" is a best seller even today, a book that is timeless, and forever valid in nature. We may not have even considered that the first publication stretches back to even earlier roots: it was published in 1936.

When discussing success, it does not simply focus on the successes that can be achieved in the world of business, it interpretes success holistically, and as such success is seen as an entire life’s achievement.

The secret of this book lies in its deep and positive content, in addition to the almost tabloid-style provocative phrasing and message. Small examples and little tricks are listed as suggestions for the enrichment and enhancement of human relations. These are for example frequent breakfast in bed for married couples or the effect of letters that „work wonders” with the secret of a favour asked from the receiver, highlighting their importance, or emphasizing the importance of smile epitomizing the power of compliment. He also emphasizes the reflexive result of help offered to others, which has the power of influencing whole lives; and also advises always focusing on common interest and standpoints when dissolving a dispute.

Also shares important thoughts about realising mistakes, acknowledgement and also apologising for mistakes, emphasizing the use of a smile, attentive listening and the power of altruism. He writes about the distinction of compliments and acknowledgements from flattery.

What is flattery? As he defines, it is a selfish compliment that is empty, "cheap", often unfounded and never used without purpose. It is something that doesn’t come from the heart and that targets what the other wants to hear. It is manipulative in nature, as it is expected to be returned and compensated later.

Compliments in contrast are direct and honest, that stem from the heart. Acknowledgements are selfless, are well founded, sincere appreciations, which we always welcome, yet often accept too bashfully. Yes, we often tend to shy away from compliments, when we get them face to face.

Even though, me must learn to distinguish acknowledgement from empty flattery, indeed we must learn to accept this with a simple „Thank you” as he says.

Mark H. McCormack: What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School

I would like to devote the next few blog entries to book recommendations that may be interesting in business context.

Once upon a time, at the dawn of the political and economic changes in Hungary, when even Corvinus was known as Karl Marx (just to clarify; the Budapest University was not yet named after the King Corvinus) and when the word „Burger King” was explained in footnotes (!) to the silly reader. It was during this time, that this book appeared, which was written in 1984 and could be found in Hungarian on bookshelves in 1988 – as the period’s best seller.

Looking carefully it from today’s perspective, the writer introduces an extremely arrogant, aggressive, competitive, offensive leadership negotiation strategy as a pledge for success, a form of, „dig dig and you will but find” message.

Some of his controversial suggestions listed for example: don’t make friendship with employees, sometimes arbitrary decisions must be made, everyone should always respect who’s the boss, positive motivation is never enough, a little fear factor is always necessary so as to prevent people from becoming lazy, strategic shifts and jumps as well as all other changes should be approached randomly, a public share company cannot be properly led, a boss is always right („least said soonest mended”) and in any case the existing company structure should be respected and never to be challenged – Today it tells of a static world we can be even envious of! In today’s dynamic business environment, innovative and successful companies have proven their successes without following such principles.

The book does not speak in any way about partnerships, win-win solutions, assertiveness, in fact no partners are mentioned, only rivals who need to be conquered. The writer forcibly rams the reader with suggestions as to how to make people become indebted to us with a series of presents and favours. This is all done for a certain interest, meaning when the time comes, we will be able to ask for favours that cannot be turned down, in other words to shamelessly get back the price of everything; so finally that is hand over the invoice. This seemingly successful approach, today appears to be quite repugnant, even so it is interesting to read.

It would be rather naive of us to think that those who represented this school have all passed away, or that this trend is absent of followers today. It’s enough to simply think of the attitude epitomized by some politicians and bussinesmen…

Something that we should all learn from this book is that „a free lunch does not exist”, in other words: a heavy price may later at any time be payed for a favour that is at first one sided, free, and unreturned.

Do read literature!

How literature finds its way in a blog based on leadership challenges and dilemmas may at first look strange. However, reading in addition to being a flow activity is also useful, as a reader may gain information, without actually having to ask anyone, and sharing their ignorance. They can in other words gain knowledge and become initiated, without being at anyone else’s disposal.

But why on earth is literature so helpful? We rarely hear that it results in and enhances some form of practical knowledge.

Literature does however give us the opportunity to obtain scores of a secret knowledge. Not only do we become initiated in issues governing the mind, but also in relation to „the heart”!

Good books are not simply made up of stories, interesting twists in the plot. Good books bring fascinating characters to life, with complicated dilemmas as well as ambivalent emotions – with people whom we may well encounter in our private lives, or as leaders, indeed our colleagues might experience such emotions on a daily basis.

Literature is categorically a joy of flow activity, it enhances our creativity in imagery, emotional intelligence, our abilities with regard to empathy, it helps us switch off, but is thought provoking at the same time.

Russian literature is a unique branch of literature, „the great Russian soul” with its grand dilemmas, vexing emotions, a good example of this is Dosztojevszkij’s (Crime and Punishment) Pasternak’s (Doktor Zhivago) or Tolsztoj’s (War and Peace).

If literature really doesn’t appeal to you, then you can always read biographies: a clever person learns from other peoples’ life experiences, not from his/her own mistakes…

A person who reads lot of quality books, whether that be literature, biographical books or non-fiction can understand people better and can see the correlations – moreover once a person masters the art of quick reading, they won’t be disheartened when having to make a decision or forming an opinion, on the spur of the moment after reading a seventy-hundred paged professional document in a matter of a hours…