High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 588: How to Find the Flow State with Dr. Arlene Bauer, Peak Performance Expert and Mental Performance Consultant

Episode Date: December 23, 2023

Dr. Arlene Bauer is an expert in Peak Performance whose career includes extensive work in the public sector with professional athletes and top executives at companies like Visa, Google, and IBM to the private sector, where she has directly consulted and trained leaders at NASA, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Army. As a Certified Mental Performance Consultant (CMPC) and Associate Certified Coach (ACC), she focuses on coaching individuals towards continued, optimal growth through self-monitoring and regulating physiological and cognitive processes while cultivating present-moment awareness and flow under high-pressure, high-stakes situations. In addition to her consulting work, Arlene is an adjunct faculty member at Grand Canyon University and National University. She holds a B.S. in Exercise Science, an M.S. in Sport and Performance Psychology, and an Ed.D. in Transformational Leadership. She lives in the San Antonio, Texas, area with her husband, son, dog, three cats, and bearded dragon. She loves the outdoors, breakfast tacos, writing children’s books with her sister, and cooking (when someone else offers to do the dishes). In this podcast, Arlene and Cindra talk: The intrinsic drivers to the flow state The STIR acronym and how it relates to flow The internal and external flow blockers The flow triggers    HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE: www.cindrakamphoff.com/588 FOLLOW CINDRA ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/cindrakamphoff/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON X: https://twitter.com/mentally_strong Love the show? Rate and review the show for Cindra to mention you on the next episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/high-performance-mindset-learn-from-world-class-leaders/id1034819901    

Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. This is your host, Dr. Sindra Kampoff, and thank you so much for joining me here today on the episode today about flow and how to experience flow more often. I am the founder of the Mentally Strong Institute, keynote speaker, and executive performance coach, and I'm just really pumped today

to have Dr. Arlene Bauer on the podcast. I know you're gonna find this episode really practical, but research-based as well. And that's what I really try to do on this podcast is to provide experts and content that you can use in your everyday life that's easy to understand and based on tools and really, you know, deep understanding on the research, but really practical tools

that you can use in your everyday life. So today's episode does that exactly. Now, today I have Dr. Arlene Bauer on the podcast, and she's an expert in peak performance whose career includes extensive work in the public sector with professional athletes and top executives at companies like Visa, Google, and IBM, to the private sector where she has directly consulted and trained leaders at NASA, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Army. As a certified mental performance consultant and an associate certified coach with the

International Coach Federation. She really works to help people optimize their growth and experience flow under high pressure, high stakes situations. In addition to her consulting work, she is an adjunct faculty member at Grand Canyon University and at National University. And she lives in San Antonio, Texas with her husband, her son, dog, three cats, and her bearded dragon. There you go. Now in this episode, Dr. Arlene and I talk about the intrinsic drivers to the flow state, the STIR acronym and how it relates to flow and how you can use it in your everyday life, the internal and external flow blockers,

and various flow triggers. If you'd like to see the full show notes and description of this podcast, head over to cindracampoff.com slash 588 for episode 588. And if you don't have your pen and paper out already, I encourage you to do that because this episode is just jam-packed with useful content, information, research, and ideas that you can use in your work, in your sport, and in your life. Without further ado, let's bring on Dr. Bauer. Dr. Arlene Bauer, thank you so much for joining us on the High Performance Mindset Podcast. I'm just pumped that you're here and I can't wait to experience and talk to you more about all of your diverse experiences.

Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited. You bet. Well, I thought maybe we should just get started and dive right in. You know, you've just had such amazing experiences, diverse experiences in the military, with executives, with athletes, and you've just worked across so many different domains. So I'm curious, what do you see that top performers have in common? That's a really good question. And as I think about it, there's a few things.

One, I think that one of the biggest ones, though, is if you were, I guess, to put things into the category of like intrinsic drivers. So like there's a lot of curiosity, passion, sense of purpose, you know, those are things that top performers are connecting to or thinking about in different ways. There's obviously stuff, you know, like, you know, peak performance hygiene practices, like getting good sleep and things along those lines. But I would say something that is unique would be, you know, they can really speak to what they love and why, you know, why they're doing something. And I think that takes a lot of reflection,

understanding, you know, of yourself and kind of peeling back the layers of an onion to really think about what do you love? And I think it's a lifelong journey. Like I think about myself and getting connected to what I love. It's always paying attention to what gives me energy and what doesn't. Yeah. I love that you pointed that out because it makes me think of what do I see people do? You know, they, a lot of journaling, you know, these, these introspective practices, whether it be, you know, sitting and meditating or doing some type of journaling, those are, I guess you'd call them habits, like habits that I've seen peak performers have pretty consistently.

Yeah, that gives them that time to self-reflect, like you said. Tell us a little bit about how you got interested in performance psychology and your journey to now doing what you're doing and the various ways that you're a coach. Yeah, I love that question because I feel like it's funny how I got into it. I did play sports, but that wasn't like my thing. You know, I went to college on scholarship for music, like I did choir and theater and things like that. And I always kind of struggled with performance anxiety. And that was it, you know, just try to figure out how to manage it. And so when I was an undergrad, I took a sports psychology class as an elective. And I was so surprised that there's this field where you can learn how to train all the things that people tell you how to do, like be confident and focus and things like that. Things that I got told, you know, by, you know, directors and coaches and stuff. And I was like, wait, you can train this. This is a thing because I was just kind of leaving it up to chance. I think a lot of times and hoping for the best, you know, every time I

stepped out into the stage that, you know, I wouldn't tank from the mental side. And that's what got me interested. So I went to my advisor and I asked her, I was a, I started out as a biology major and then went into the exercise science. And I asked her, is this something I can do? Like, are there jobs around this? And she said, yeah, we're going to have to change your major and you're probably going to have to get a master's. So we did changed it, added some classes, got that done so that I could pursue my master's degree. But that's what got me interested in it, because I think because I struggled with performance anxiety and I didn't realize that that was something that you could train the way you train the body. Yeah, absolutely. Who was your professor in that undergrad class? Do you remember? Yes. I called her by her first name. So now I'm going to think Dr. Cindy.

Dr. Cindy. Dr. Cindy. Yeah. I'm trying to remember what her last name was now. It was so long ago. But yes, Dr. Cindy. Well, thank goodness for Dr. Cindy. I know. She was so supportive. Oh, that's awesome. When I was pursuing my interest in performance psychology, I remember a lot of people telling me at the time, you know, there's no way that you can get a, have a job in this profession, you know, and obviously things have changed over the last 20 years or so. And thank goodness it has. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't have anybody tell me that. But I also, you know, I didn't think about it. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe if I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done it. But I did not. So I just went for it. Well, you are following your passion and your purpose and what gives you energy and being curious. So there you go. Today, we're really going to focus in on this idea of flow. And I'm

really excited to talk to you more about the research behind it, but also how you work with your clients. And because I think the people who are listening are going to really be interested in the practical side of flow and how do we experience it more often? What are the barriers that get in our way of flow? And how about we just define it to get started? And I've read quite a bit of Czech Sik Mihaly's work who started this concept of flow, but I'd love to hear from your perspective on what flow means to you and how would you put it in your own words? Yeah, Czechsak Mihaly's definition is the one I always go to, that complete absorption in a task.

I also love the STIR acronym, that loss of sense of self and time and effort, and then richness of experience. Those are the two places I go to when I'm describing it. Something else that we talk about a lot, like at the Flow Research Collective, is that those, that complete absorption is associated with specific changes in the brain. And that's really cool to think about. So that's basic definition. That's how I would define it. And then one of the things that we do is we talk about some of those changes that happen because it gives people some explanation. Like, why does that happen?

You know, what's going on? How do you get that complete absorption and loss of sense of self and time? What's happening there? And there are some things happening there that contribute to that experience. And I'm curious about, maybe let's start with the STIR acronym. For those people who aren't familiar, maybe haven't read the research familiar with the flow about that STIR acronym and how maybe people could use that in their own lives. Okay, sorry, it cut out just for a, but I think I did it. Yeah, I don't know if it's okay. Well, I just put my hotspot on because I was like, just wondering if it was mine. So obviously,

we'll cut this part out. Yes, we could be mine, Cinder, because I have anyway, backstory, some construction, and it could be affecting it. Anyway, I just asked about the STIR acronym and like, hey, let's debrief that a little bit more. Maybe I just ask the question just to make sure it's on the recording. So Arlene, just in case people aren't familiar with the STIR acronym, tell us a little bit about that and let's unpack that a little bit. Yeah. So those are whenever you're experiencing flow. I like to think about them as and I'm sure others others, you know, have ways of explaining this too, as these indicators of flow. So a lot of folks that we work with or that I work with are interested in flow and they of sense of self and I did lose track of time and effort, things became effortless, actually. It seemed effortless.

And the experience was rich in the form of your senses, what you're seeing and feeling in the body. So when those are dialed up, then those are the things that tell us that we were in that flow state. So a lot of times what I'll talk to people about if they're trying to be more aware of when flow is happening for them, because they want to work on bringing it into other situations. We probably have, we all have kind of areas where flow comes a little bit more naturally. And so we can look to those and describe those. But if you can reflect on those and identify, yeah, those are some things that happened and what was the scale that they happened on? Was it a little bit more micro or was it macro? That can be really awesome to reflect on because then what we can do is say, okay, well, what was it about that experience that helped me have that loss of sense of self

and time and effort and richness of experience? What did I do, you know, before I started that thing that helped contribute to that? So those are some ways that I talk about it with clients. Excellent. So loss of self time, effortless and richness of experience. And as we kind of dive into why does this even matter? Because I think that's really important when you think about what are the outcomes of flow? Before we jumped on, we talked about all the different types of research that flow is connected to. Chronic pain, spirituality, PTSD. But as people are thinking about, okay, why should we keep listening to this podcast, right? How does the flow experience connect with like our success

in sport, business or other domains? Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, there's the outcome pieces, which some folks are doing research on. There's still a lot, you know, that we're trying to figure out, you know, with flow, but people being able to experience more productivity and getting more done in less time. And I can say just anecdotally, you know, from the probably now like hundreds of people that I've gotten to coach on the topic, is that those are the things that they say. They're like, oh, I noticed that I had time back in my week because things I'm so locked in and I'm so productive on what I'm doing. I'm using the word productive. You know, sometimes it's they're more creative, you know, it's tied to what their work is. But that's what I hear from folks is they they they see the difference in their week because

they're checking things off that list that would linger there a lot of times for longer and getting time back in their day and their week. Well, I think everyone would like more of that, especially people who are high performers who are listening to this podcast. And you mentioned, absolutely, you mentioned how, you know, there are some changes in the brain and let's kind of, let's just talk a little bit more about that. And can you share with us, you know, the neurobiology of flow and just what does happen in our brain? Because that might get people just more even interested in what we're talking about and and really understanding the outcomes.

Yeah, there is, you know, these there's a set of neurochemicals that we've been able to identify. I say we, you know, I didn't do the research myself, but the researchers have identified, you get kind of this burst of norepinephrine and dopamine. I think there's five. So norepinephrine, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and anandamide. So just a combination of those. So those are like if we were looking at a brain, which this is something that the team, the research team at FRC is, is trying to actually measure what's happening in the brain in, when you're in a flow state. So when you get into

flow, you know, that's something that you see happen. And then there you're kind of shifting through different brainwave states to get into flow. And really in flow, there's a combination of all with different frequencies. I don't know what the frequency numbers are, but I know that they're there. And so it is this very unique state that you can see in the brain, which I think is pretty cool. What makes that helpful is that the steps leading up to it, and that's something we talk about at the Flow Research Collective a lot, is, well, what do you play with before and after that helps you get, you know, to that state? So we talk about the stages of the flow cycle,

the first stage being struggle, then release, then flow, and then recovery. And that's where we spend our time with folks is how do you manage those stages that help you get to that flow state? Struggle, release, flow, recovery. Tell us how we might be able to use those four stages in our own life and in our experience and getting in the flow. Yeah. So struggle phase is, I love this idea of a struggle phase. And most of our people that we talk to love it too, because they're like, wow, it's so

refreshing to know that I shouldn't be struggling. Yeah. You know, when you take on- But I'm not alone. Yes. Yeah. When you start something that like, say, say something that you're, you're doing at work and you sit down to your computer and you're, you're feeling that challenge. So that's, you know, Chicks That Me High's challenge to skills balance. Like you've

got to be in that channel of challenge. That's good. You know, if you're feeling challenged, you're feeling pushed a little bit. There's something happening, you know, when that happens, you get into this kind of alert state, beta brain waves happen, you do get some of that norepinephrine. So you get this uptick. And then when you're struggling, you have this moment. Now, sometimes, sometimes release is like, you have to actually stop what you're doing and take a breath and sit back and, and let let those neurochemicals that were happening, let something else arise, which is usually nitric oxide, kind of a burst of nitric oxide to bring that down a bit. So sometimes it's very much this, like, I'm struggling and now I need to step away and

take a breath. And sometimes it's so much smaller than that. Like, I'm struggling and I'm like, okay, I've got this. It's that self-talk that we know so much about in our field. We lean into it and that gives us that burst as well. So there's a couple of ways that release phase happens. Like I said, sometimes it's very intentional and sometimes it's more of I'm leaning into this. And after that is where we tend to see flow show up is after those two phases. After the release and the struggle. And then what's the recovery? Tell us why we need to sort of like have that recovery stage after flow. Oh my goodness. And this is the one we spend so much time on this at FRC because most people don't do enough of recovery at all or they don't

do it well. But to your question, why is it so important to flow specifically? I would say it's important because people don't do it enough. Right. Exactly. Yeah. But to to the point about flow flow, while it's an amazing state, it's high energy expenditure. And even though it doesn't, you know, usually if you come out of a flow experience, you feel great. And maybe you want to keep doing other things. And instead, what you should do is do something that is recovery. Because all that that just happened in the body, it needs, it's like running a sprint, and you need to recover afterwards. So engaging in something that down regulates, you know,

the nervous system that lets the mind wander. I mean, this takes you out of that, you know, active state. So that could be going for a walk that could be just relaxing for a little while. What else would you recommend? Because I, a lot of my executive clients, I talk about like how we need to recover like a pro athlete, right? And I'm thinking about I do a lot of work in football and there's no way they can play well on Sunday if they're completely exhausted. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good question. And we do have – so the first place we tend to recommend because we know it does help create a cognitive shift and it downregulates the system is anything

that is embodied. So stretching, walking, foam rolling. I have a little mat that does acupressure on your feet. That's my go-to. I go stand on that, you know, in between meetings and things like that. Oh, that's great. Yeah. So anything that pulls you out of your head and into your body, because it helps to create that cognitive shift and a physiological shift. Those are kind of the two things that you're going for. So really, I mean, you know, lots of activities could do those two things, but we know that those embodied activities do a pretty good job of it. So we recommend those a lot. So let's talk about how do we increase our experience of, you know, of feeling the flow. And I'm thinking about,

for me, I'm writing another book. So I'd like to experience flow more often. Oh, yeah. That's amazing. I'll have to add it. I already have your other book. It's awesome. Oh, thank you. I'll be excited to read the next one. I appreciate it. But that's for sure when I want to experience it more often. But also in my work with my own clients, you know, just all the ways that I perform. But let's dive into how. Tell us a bit about maybe where you'd start if you're working with someone to increase their chances of experiencing flow. Yeah. So the first place that

we start and that I start, and this can be quick or it can be long depending on, you know, the individual, is addressing anything that could be getting in the way of flow. So that tends to be stuff in your external environment, you know, because like for flow, you need to be focused in, you know, you need to have clear goal, you need to be free of distraction. And so there's a lot of cleaning up of the environment that happens, especially for people nowadays who work from home. There's so much potential for interruption. And it sounds like such a simple thing, but not an easy thing to solve for. It involves talking to people and

turning off doorbells and all kinds of things that of things that can, that can create an interruption. So that's a, oh my gosh, we, we usually actually, we give people kind of instructions for how to turn off everything on their phone and commit to it for two weeks and see what happens. And it's amazing what a difference it makes for, for people yeah it's it's wild the amount the amount of time people get back just from turning off notifications you know during the day uh so they're not getting disrupted uh oh also slack slack's a big one that at least my the i don't know if the folks you work with syndrome with the folks i work with that's a big one that is a disruptor um so that and and to and to that point, like people, when they have meetings and things like that, they tend to be really peppered, you know,

throughout the day. So collapsing things into chunks, so kind of chunking your time. So there's a lot of like logistical things that you can do. And then there's the internal side, you know, what are the things that might be getting in the way of you having that loss of sense of self? You know, sometimes our mindset, which I, you know, I know you talk a lot about mindset, like that can, we start judging ourselves or we go into the experience thinking, how am I going to do? And so there could be things around mindset or confidence that, that you, that we work with people on as well so that they can fully get into flow. We call all of those things flow blockers. So let's remove all the blockers. And then once we

remove the blockers, then we can think about how do I navigate that cycle? We got to give space for that cycle. That's great. Yeah. When I think about my flow blockers and I think about when I was writing my first book, you know, there was thoughts I would have that I was like, no one's ever going to read this anyway. Why am I writing this? Which I think is pretty common. There's a lot of first time authors I've talked to since then that it's like, yeah, you wonder, you know, because you're focused on the outcome and not necessarily the process. And I'm, I, from my experience, that's been a flow blocker when I'm focusing

in on, you know, the athletes I work with, if they're focusing on the score or their numbers on, on the field. Right. Or for me, it's yeah. who will read this? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, so then the different tools and strategies come into play based off of what is a person's flow blocker, like that self-doubt or who cares about this? Having practices related to the flow triggers. If you think about a clear goal, okay, what is your clear goal and is it related to the flow triggers. If you think about a clear goal, okay, what is your clear goal and is it related to the process? What do you want to have accomplished by the end of this 90 minutes or two hours, however long you're working on the task for? So getting people more kind of task oriented. Yes.

Yeah. So versus the ego orientation. So get different ways to do that. It's funny that you brought up writing because I've had some folks who are writers and I'll often introduce to them pre-performance routines and they say, oh my gosh, I never thought to use that. You know, I did that when I was an athlete, never thought to apply it to my work, but it helps to be more task oriented. So the strategies will vary, you know, but some of them, they kind of align with what triggers the flow for us.

So let's use maybe a hypothetical client that you work with, or if you can just think generally of people that you work with. What do you see as the biggest barriers or flow blockers? And then let's just take one example and how you might work with somebody around that. Definitely biggest flow blockers. And there's, there's always, I don't know, it's probably a tie between like stuff in the external environment. And then actually what you describe like that worrying about how you know how I'm how I'm doing or how I'm going to be perceived or how this work is going to be perceived um let me just think for a moment if there's any others that would be really common I would think those are the two and those are two we target you know at FRC we talk about mindset and talk about the external environment so those are big ones um so the external environment is

just like giving people a protocol like here's some ways here how to manage that um and then with that kind of worrying about you know how is this going to turn out? Techniques, yes, for kind of getting more task oriented, but then also just thinking about what's driving that, you know, are there some beliefs that you have? We do talk about fixed and growth mindset, and we very specifically talk about what are those beliefs sound like for you? You know, limiting beliefs. What are some of those? I've had, I'll have clients write down like what pops into your head right now? Like some, write them down.

Let's write them down. Okay. Let's think about how we shift that mindset and different ways, you know, to do that. I like to do journaling a lot with folks, like noticing, doing some mindset detection. Like, what do you hear? What does it sound like? What does that mindset sound like when you talk to yourself and start to recognize it? And when you recognize it, what do you want to shift it to?

So there's some kind of long-term work on addressing that. And then some of those in-the in the moment strategies that can be helpful, like clear goals and routines, but they all have to, they all have to be, you know, worked on. You can't do, you can't just do pre-performance routines, I don't think, without addressing, well, what's driving that? Yeah. And the deeper beliefs or limitations. I appreciate that you said like most of the barriers and blockers are like internal and external. Yeah. Right. And that's what I would say for myself as well, as I think about my experience of getting in, experiencing flow more often, that it's, you know, the kind of

deeper things I have to continue to keep addressing. So we all have limiting beliefs that can get in our way. Yeah. What, as people are thinking about their own blockers to flow, and you said like phones can be a big barrier. Do you have any recommendations that, you know, you could just say, hey, make sure you turn off notifications, make sure, you know, is there anything else that you'd recommend? Sometimes I put my phone down, so I can't see the top of it. Yeah. Yeah do the mechanics of a period of time where you want to experience flow. So like for you, Cinder, if you're sitting down to write, deciding how much time that's going to be. And then, yes, I would say even putting your phone in a different room

so you can't see it. I think it was Adam Grant that said, even if it's all notifications are off, if it's in your line of sight, he talked about this podcast that it can still be a distraction and a pretty big one. So get, you know, getting rid of all of that, having conversations with people, you know, please don't interrupt. And I have to do that with my kiddo, especially if I'm working while he's at home. I'm like, hey, I just need a few minutes, only if it's an emergency. And we have to talk about what an emergency is sometimes. So that's kind of stuff. And then if you think about the if I go back to stir, like loss of sense of time, I actually like to use a timer that I can't see.

So if I because I can't just work. If I get into flow, I mean, sometimes people can be there for a while. And most of the people I work with are, have other responsibilities. They've got meetings I got to go to, they've got kids I got to pick up from school. So they need to have time. But to kind of get that loss of sense of time, if you can have a timer that goes off, it's not visible. Yeah. So that can be a really cool thing to, all right, I'm going to work for these two hours and I'm not going to get up until I hear that timer go off, but you don't see it. So that can give you a little bit of more focus on what you're doing. And then setting a clear intention on, okay, at the end of this two hours what am i going to reflect on

um it could be a word count you know it could be if it's as straightforward as that um you know if i i also work with other coaches like maybe they have an intention in their coaching session that they want to be focused on maintaining presence how are they going to do that what are the components to that um good so you know like in icf they have like here's some ways that you can demonstrate maintaining presence maybe they pick one of those um so a clear goal or intention so cleaning up the environment clear goal intention trying to create that um loss of sense of time and self. So the clear goals and intentions can help you be more task oriented or more other oriented. Like if you're coaching,

what are you noticing about the other person to get some of that loss of sense of self in there as well? And then whatever your intention is, is it slightly challenging? Because that can push us into flow is to be a little bit challenged. Hi, this is Cyndra Campoff, and thanks for listening to the High Performance Mindset. Did you know that the ideas we share in the show are things we actually specialize in implementing? If you want to become mentally stronger, lead your team more effectively and get to your goals quicker, visit freementalbreakthroughcall.com to sign up for your free mental breakthrough call with one of our certified coaches.

Again, that's freementalbreakthroughcall.com to sign up for your free call. Talk to you soon. What do you see as the outcome of the clients that you work with? In terms of training, the flow experience, and our ability to get in it, what do you see as the outcome of the clients that you work with, you know, in terms of training the flow experience and our ability to get in it? What do you see them? I mean, you said more productivity. Is there anything else you'd say? Yeah, there's definitely more productivity. And people, I hear people say a lot. So again, this is anecdotal. Um, just my experience. People

say a lot that they just feel better. Like they feel less overwhelmed, which is huge, especially, you know, with, I mean, we just kind of live in the state of overwhelm sometimes. So people say they feel more overwhelmed. Uh, and then there's these trickle down effects. You know, they, I've had people say, you know, I'm noticing I'm getting more time to be present with my family or present with the things that I love like to do. You know, a lot of times people have these activities that they, they let go of because they're so overwhelmed or they have too much to do and they bring those back, which I think is really amazing. Yeah, that is amazing. And happiness is a big deal, right? If you can help people feel less stressed and anxious and overwhelmed and happier and more

content, more present, I think more than ever, there's just all these different demands on our time and our attention. So yeah, wonderful. I remember a couple of years ago at our Association for Applied Sports Psychology conference, I was having a conversation with a practitioner and he suggested that we shouldn't train people to get in the flow because maybe it can come and go so often. Like it can be fleeting if that's, if that makes sense. I'm just curious how you might respond to that. Yeah, that's, it makes sense that if it's something that's fleeting, it could feel like unnecessary, I guess, to some people to try to like train that state. But the way I think about it is like you never control the

outcome of performance, for example, like you can do everything you want to do and you don't. So it's more about, it's more about creating that experience of a presence. And, you know, if you think about the flow cycle and the flow triggers, like they're all, they're all things that bring you more into the moment um so if it is about that um which is like i said a lot of what we talk about with folks is those pieces um then that's worthwhile i think yeah that's worthwhile and i think about the flow triggers and what you've just said about you know what flow really is and's, who doesn't want to experience that more often? And it's really just us being at our best. Right? Right. That we remove some of these external

and internal blockers. Right. Yep. So, Dr. Bauer, what do you, when you're thinking about mindset in general or flow, is there something specific that you hear yourself saying over and over again i'm just curious about that if there's a go-to phrase or concept that you talk a lot about we could stay focused on flow or we could just you know move towards you know your more comprehensive work yes okay love that question um and it is there is a flow trigger to this but something i talk to people about a lot, I feel like I say a lot is incorporating reflection and or feedback. I kind of use a different different terms for that. I've noticed that sometimes not sometimes a lot of times people don't have immediate feedback process. And it just makes sense in the way that, you know, we work there's, you get, you really get like summative feedback a

lot of times, but not this immediate feedback. And so that's something I talk to people and feedback is a flow trigger. But even outside of flow, you know, science of expertise, that's one of the components as well. So I find myself coaching people a lot on, well, what would it look like to have more immediate feedback and how do you bring that in? And a lot of it is, is you, you know, if you're setting a clear goal and intention, what do you, how, what are you reflecting on? And it's for the purpose of progress, you know, not for judgment. So there's conversations and questions we have to ask there to make sure we're viewing this as something that is data. It's data to adjust. And I use sport examples a lot. You know, if you're playing

basketball in the driveway and you shoot and you miss, you're going to adjust your body some way, right? So we can take that same mindset to how we work as well. So I would say that one is one that I talk about a lot, maybe just because I like it. Maybe I introduce it to people a lot of times, but it's a question I ask, you know, what kind of immediate feedback do you have? And I've noticed that people don't have a lot of immediate. They might have a lot of, like I said, summative feedback, but not immediate. Well, when I think about, you know, the dimensions of flow that Czechsik Mihaly, and if people aren't familiar with his name, he's the founder of just this concept of flow. You know, one is immediate feedback. And I think people might have the assumption that has

to come from other people like a coach or a boss. And I appreciate that you just said that it can come from you paying attention to what's going on with you and staying more focused on the process of what you're doing than the outcome. Yes. How has this understanding of, you know, your involvement in the flow research collective and just just more of your understanding of the Flow experience, how has that shaped you? Because I could imagine as I'm listening that maybe you're more present or more connected. I was just kind of curious about that. Yeah, I love that you asked that because when I started working with FRC, I thought, wow, this is so cool to like apply these things in a different way. You know, there, you know, I knew about flow, learned about it in grad school. But this

whole idea that, so where I got, I guess I got most influenced, this whole idea that you can take some actions that can help you experience flow more instead of it like being as fleeting as it you know it can be sometimes that's been huge for me so a lot of the things that you know we which we should coach our clients on I do for myself as well like turning things off and having you know distractions gone away and doing journaling and I have my own, you know, meditation practice. So all of those things that would be, I think sometimes we call it like flow hygiene. I'm a lot more intentional about it than I was previously, I think. Absolutely. When I think about the flow experience, maybe one of the things that could get in our way of experiencing it or get in our own head, right? So where you become more self-conscious

is this idea of failure. And I'm, you know, usually Dr. Bauer, I ask everybody on the podcast, tell us about a time you failed and what you learned from it. And I'm curious about how you might answer that. And if it's connected to what we've been talking about so far. Yeah. Gosh, just one time I failed. The time you failed last week. Yeah. And now I fail in so many different domains now.

Now I can add parenting to that. Which I think is the hardest domain in my opinion. That's such a good question. So I do think my relationship to failure has changed over the years. Initially, it was something I tried to avoid at all costs. And it was, you know, I would say I was probably more fixed mindset before I had labels or language for that when I was younger. And so I've grown in that over time. Let's think of a good specific time where I've failed. Oh, gosh. Well, this one came to me and it gave me kind of a visceral reaction. I went back to school for my doctorate having not been in school for a while. And one of the phases like transitioning from your coursework into dissertation

is you had to write kind of this a paper that had certain outcomes for it but was addressing a lot of the stuff that we had learned and I submitted it and they told me I had to redo it yeah that I was way off base and I was just like are you kidding me like this is like I'm not gonna you know all the negative thoughts of like am I gonna be I can't even write this paper how am I gonna write a dissertation was my initial thought but you know I hadn't been in school for a while and so I just had to take a lot of deep breaths I'm like okay if I'm gonna move on to the next phase I have to figure out what I did wrong here. So I took the feedback. I got a lot of feedback. And it was now I can look back to that and view it as I did become a better writer after that.

It just helped me key into, okay, here's everything that you missed. And you can, you actually can improvement because the next because the second time I submitted it, I got wildly different feedback. I did focus a lot on incorporating it. So I think it was a good lesson of coming back to feedback. It's funny that that came full circle for me here just now. With the right type of feedback, you can really take any failure and gain something from it, gain some type of learning from it. Yeah, that's really helpful. And I was thinking

about a similar experience I had in grad school too. My first, maybe this is just, it has to happen to you in graduate school, right? My first draft of my dissertation, I had one of my advisors just rip it apart. I mean, it was like five pages written feedback. And I remember calling my dad and just, you know, I remember the exact moment I was in my garage, I just got home. And, you know, I'm like, I just don't think I can do this, you know, and I felt kind of like a victim, like, you know, who does she think she is giving me all this feedback? My dad was like, she's, you know, she's the person who you have to like get approval to finish this dissertation. And you know what, Arlene, my dissertation was so much better because of the feedback that I got.

And it took more time than I expected. And I ended up delaying my own graduation six months, but it was an awesome dissertation that I'm really proud of. And I don't think it would have got there without that feedback. That's amazing. Yeah. But it felt like a really big failure at the time. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. What have I not asked you about flow or your work that you'd like to share with us? Okay. Let me think for a moment. Hmm.

How do you keep it going? That's a question I get from clients a lot. We haven't talked about that. Yeah. And I, so. going that's a question I get from clients a lot we haven't talked about that yeah um and I so having I guess it I guess it would be feedback maybe not necessarily but just check-ins whether that's you know a mentor or a teacher or just you know we have a lot of folks who end up connecting with each other and then and then checking in with each other once every other month or something like that. Just to be able to keep those habits going that help them experience flows, whether it's journaling or getting rid of distraction and understanding that there is going to be steps backwards.

We're just human beings. We're going to fall victim to the phone or to distraction, and that's okay. So I think that's a huge component of keeping the habits going, too, is like giving yourself grace when habits fall off and just reintroducing them. So I think a community, somebody, another person can really be helpful with that piece. Absolutely. Well, how can people reach out to you, follow along with what you're doing? Tell us how people might be able to connect with you after this interview. Oh, sure. I'm always on LinkedIn and I actually get a lot of people connecting with me there. So that's probably the easiest. I'm not a big social media person with other.

I've tried. I've tried to do like Twitter and Instagram. I'm not very good at it. So I forget to check them. But LinkedIn, I check. So that would be a good place to find me. Perfect. And I'll put your link in the show notes.

Perfect. What final advice would you have for people who are listening dr bauer good question final advice i would say connect with your why and Connect with your why and prioritize recovery. Connect with your why and prioritize recovery. Excellent. Excellent. And I'm going to do my best to summarize what we talked about today. the interview, I asked you, what, you know, do you see that top performers do? And you said, they have these intrinsic drivers that are really, they're connected with such as their why, their purpose, their, their passion, their curiosity. And then they have these sort of like hygiene, right? Like they get good sleep. We talked about what flow is, complete absorption

in the task, and you use the acronym STIR to help us think about what flow really is. We discussed these external and internal blockers to flow, and how usually it's kind of a mix of both of them to address, to experience flow more often. We were talking about the neurobiology of flow, what to do with your phone, put it away, put it in the other room, turn off notifications on your email and on your phone. And then at the end, we were talking about reflection, feedback, how that's really important, and just continuing to have more of a growth mindset when failure occurs. So Dr. Bauer, thank you so much for just connecting with us today, sharing your wisdom that you have over just a wide variety

of domains and experiences. So thanks for being with us today. You're just so graceful. I really appreciate that. Thanks for having me. This was fun. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual Thanks for having me. This was fun. community for high performers, where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindhra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.