This book is a deep dive into some of the latest scientific thinking and best practice approaches to achieve success in your endeavours. It provides a clear peak performance recipe covering four areas – Motivation, Learning, Creativity and Flow.
The motivation content looks at how we are driven and how to identify and focus on areas that are of interest to you. This is a powerful and useful exercise. It then outlines a framework for long-term and shorter-term goals and gives useful advice on how to incorporate grit and ferocity in achieving them.
Moving onto learning, Steven provides a model based on his journalistic and writing exploits that is clear and understandable. It can be applied to both knowledge gathering and skills development. I’m definitely going to apply this to a field of interest to see how it works.
He recommends reading relevant materials, speaking to experts about the topic, gathering a grounding in the subject matter then explaining what you have learned to two people; a friend who has no interest in the topic and an expert. There’s further information on areas like deliberate practice, emotional intelligence and shortcuts to success.
The book then shifts to creativity, outlines why it is so crucial in the 21st century and how you can cultivate and grow in this area. It looks at both short-term and longer-term creativity and segways to the final part of the book, which is probably the most interesting – the power of flow.
The key takeaway for me from this book is that if you can get yourself into a flow state – doing something you love, whether a sport, hobby or anything else – you can expand this state into all areas of your life. It is concentrated focus, those moments where you lose all sense of time and do activities where you are fully absorbed. This section outlines the science of flow, how to develop and grow in this area, and finally brings all of the different aspects of the book together with a process that you can apply.
I listened to the Audible version and took lots of notes as I went – always a good sign. It’s one of those books where I have ended up buying the physical version to go with it as it’s so packed full of useful advice. If you’re looking for a framework you can apply to help meet your goals and achieve greater fulfillment, you’ll struggle to find a book as clear and comprehensive. Recommended.
