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What is flow state and why is it necessary if you want to evolve? Before evolution happens, you need disruption. You need to engage in an experience that will disrupt your current thought patterns to allow for new patterns. First, let’s understand flow. Do you remember a time when... you were fully absorbed in what you were doing and hyperfocused that you lost track of time you felt fully immersed in the moment it feels like you and nature are one you felt intense clarity of thought it seemed like ideas and solutions come to you easily and without friction everything seems to flow from one thought to the next, one move to the next you feel like you’re accomplishing 10x more than you usually do nothing else seems to matter at that moment and you feel intense inexplicable joy That’s what flow feels like. It's an altered state of consciousness when you feel your best and you perform your best. And I imagine, you want more of those moments. Flow state can mean multiple things and some people describe it in multiple ways such as: getting in the zone, runner’s high, in the box, and second wind. You let go of yourself. The part of your brain that does critical thinking shuts off. Steven Kotler (Founder of Flow Research Collective) defined it best, “Flow is an optimal state of human consciousness when you feel your best and you perform your best. It describes moments of absorption when action and awareness merge and everything falls away—time flies. Self vanishes”. Why is engaging in a flow-inducing activity necessary if you want to evolve? Because when you’re in flow, your brain produces a cocktail of feel-good neurochemicals such as dopamine, serotonin, anandamide, norepinephrine, and endorphins. It’s a cathartic experience. This then sets the stage for new connections and pattern recognition, like a reset in your mind to allow for new thoughts and higher thoughts where you can dream and visualize because you feel good and you are not critical about yourself. Ideas seem to come to you more easily and you are more open and feel more capable of grander things that you thought you can’t do when you’re not in flow. I want you to sit on that. Think about those times you were in flow state. Then visualize the kind of life you want to live. Visualize the kind of person you want to become. Visualize how you're going to build the person you want to become. In the next installment of this series, we will dig deeper into the mental and physical benefits of flow and how it can propel you further toward your evolution. Takeaway Flow rewires your brain. The more you engage in flow activities, the more your brain produces neurochemicals that will disrupt your current thought patterns and reset your way of thinking to set the stage for new thoughts. Action Items Schedule something on the calendar that’ll help you get a peak experiences rock climbing Ashtanga yoga surfing wakeboarding skydiving skateboarding mountain biking running 2. Think about activities that you can incorporate into your daily life that can get you into a micro-flow I hope you learned something from the first drop of Eternally Stoked. We will dig a bit deeper next week and continue on this overarching theme that is, Evolve, from the perspective of flow and peak performance. Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you: Develop a daily practice that gets you into flow - The Dojo Learn more about flow state - Listen to the Chasing Flow State podcast Work 1on1 with me through a Flow Lifestyle Redesign If you have any questions, feel free to email me at nash@chasingflowstate.com

Practice. It always starts with practice. How do I build the stamina to be able to put in 10,000 hours to refine my writing skills? How do I build the discipline to do deliberate practice day in day out? How do I find momentum? How do I find flow within my practice? Do I find it? Or do I instigate it? Those are the questions that run through my head as I get myself to the path of becoming a writer and a thought leader. Where do I start? How do I start? My initial idea is to start where I am and with the least effort possible to get me on the path. And that is, start publishing on Medium. The problem is, the moment I start writing there, I feel the pressure of having to perform. So I have to remind myself that this is practice. This is not a performance. Just keep going. Build up my practice. Put my work and there and see where it leads. And take my own advice. Don’t get caught up with this idea of perfection. My first work won’t be perfect and I have to accept that. But the more practice, the more I develop the skill that eventually it just becomes second nature. So I’m going to start publishing on Medium today because I told myself I will.

Journal Entry 10am on July 15, 2021 My head was filled with thoughts earlier and suddenly my brain is blank. So I’ll take my laptop with me at the crag in case I find an opportunity and inspiration to write later. For now, I have nothing to write about but maybe because I’m frightened of the 100-day challenge I put myself through so it paralyzes my idea generation. I wish I could train my mind to generate ideas on command, like really on command. That's one of the reasons why I've always been fascinated and curious about flow states. It's like a state where you prime yourself to perform at your best with ease. This has always been where my best ideas come from. OK so let's shift that for a bit. I have to train myself more so I can access flow state on command. That's more doable. I guess what I know now is still not enough. I guess something always takes much more than you initially thought it would take, just like everything else in life, everything worth pursuing. I should already know about this but I have to keep reminding myself of this though. I keep forgetting. I feel like I can write better when I’m typing on my laptop’s keyboard than on the other Bluetooth keyboard I have. I feel much closer to my writing like there is no distance between me and the words as I type them. Much like actually writing the words down with a pen except I’m too lazy to do that any longer. I should still keep doing that because it’s a great feeling. Writing down on paper feels cathartic and satiating. I’m excited to go again and try the 7b project that I did last week. I’m curious to see how I'd get on it this time. I climbed hard yesterday and I didn’t take a protein shake so I might be feeling way less than 100%. But I hope I still have it in me. I’m excited because I’m going to focus more on my yoga practice these days. Although I love climbing, I won’t take it more seriously any more than I used to. I think it should just be something I do for fun. All the seriousness I should reserve for my work. Climbing is fun. That’s it. I won’t make an emotional investment in it and risk running out of bandwidth for work because I poured out all my energy and passion in climbing which leads me nowhere. It’s a fun thing to do--an activity where I get my high and access flow. But when it starts to stop feeling good anymore, I should stop. What’s the point of climbing causing me sadness? It’s not like it’s going to generate revenue for me. But putting all my efforts into my work will help me generate revenue. It allows me to do all the other things that I want to do. It allows me to earn money so I can do the other fun things that don’t generate revenue. It allows me to fund other projects that I want to pursue. This time, I have to learn to allocate my energy based on their value and importance in my life. I also realized that I should learn how to share my thoughts and insights that come to me at scale. My initial ideas writing, public speaking, videos, podcasts, and interviews. I shouldn’t waste my energy and time on something that doesn’t lead anywhere. I should be an essentialist. How I'd categorize my activities should be either they're purely for fun or purely to bring me closer to my goals. If it's neither or in between then I'm out. I mean, what's the point, right? We don't have much time in this world to just waste it. I should keep reminding myself of that. I remember I should also not focus too much on my own thoughts but instead distill all the info I consume then produce them as content. Stop over-processing those thoughts and ideas. That is pointless and leads nowhere. So why waste?

Flow State is an altered state of consciousness where you feel your best and you perform your best based on Steven Kotler's (Author of The Rise of Superman) definition. So the question then is, how do we stay in the state of flow as long as possible? How do we get into flow? Where can flow state lead us towards? Why do we need to get into flow? Those are the questions that run through my head. But most especially, my goal in this podcast, in this journal is to explore ways so I can structure my life around flow state so I can consistently perform and my peak then recover well so I can get to my peak and do that consistently. Most of my pursuits and passions are driven by flow. I never knew this before but when I realize it, I realize I’m actually chasing for something. I thought it was adrenaline high, but as I looked deeper into myself, it wasn’t actually that. I was looking for something calmer, where I am fully engaged and satisfied, where I feel like this hunger in me for something I don’t know what for is satiated. As I continued going about my life and read lots of books and educated myself, only then did I figure out it’s flow I’m looking for. This is what I’m chasing. This certain feeling of immense satisfaction, clarity, fullness.