Adam Grant's Mario Kart Theory of Peak Flow
Flow has bubbled up to my attention through the book ”Designing Your Life” by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, as well as various TED talks and podcasts. I’m currently listening to the audiobook ”Flow” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
Outside of identifying flow for future career growth, I’m also intriuied by the idea of “flow” combating “languishing”. In the spirit of this blog and its focus on video games, I wanted to share two fun ideas I came across when searching Overcast for the term “languishing”, coincidentally within minutes of one another…
Like many of you, [during the pandemic] we were isolated from our extended family. My sister was halfway across the country. One day, we were reminiscing about how much we loved playing Mario Kart as we were kids. She said, “Well, we could all play together online now. WHy don’t we start a family game?”
Soon we were playing every day with a video call running at the same time. After a couple of weeks, I stopped feeling so blah. I was living zen in the art of Mario Kart. In the mornings, our kids were asking what time we’d play. They loved it when I would gloat about an impending victory, only to be bombed by a flying blue shell only to just sit there watching all three of our kids drive past me to the finish line in tiny go-carts.
We had so much fun that we started a new Satuday night tradition after the kids were asleep: Adult Mario Kart.
After reflecting on that experience, I’m proud to present to you for the first time my Mario Kart theory of peak flow. It has three conditions: mastery, mindfulness, and mattering.
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Stop here and take 15 minutes to watch the talk. Lots of good stuff here.
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This all explains why Mario Kart was such a great experience for me.
It gave me a feeling of mastery. The sweet satisfaction of a perfectly placed banana peel for my sister to slip on.
It required mindfulness too. My brother-in-law was the best player. Beating him demanded total concentration. Especially when my kids were ganging up with him against me.
And it wasn’t just a game. It mattered. Over the past year, we’ve all felt helpless in one way or another. I felt helpless to fix COVID. I couldn’t even do that much to make online school better, and I’m a teacher. But in Mario Kart, I felt helpful. I was able to give my kids something to look forward to when we couldn’t go anywhere. I was able to keep my family close when we were far apart.
We normally think of flow as an individual experience, by playing Nintendo, we were all immersed together. And although we don’t play daily anymore, I feel closer to my sister and my brother-in-law than I ever have before. I learned that love is not the frequency of communication. It’s the depth of connection. I also realized that the antidote to languishing does not have to be something productive. It can be something joyful. Our peak moments of flow are having fun with the people we love.
And the other conversation:
Corey Keyes, Good Life Project podcast:
When I learned about why pinball machines were created, I was astonished to find out that the man, the person who created pinball, created it because he wanted people to experience during the Great Depression the sense that what they do matters. And to enjoy life because they can get better at accomplishing things and making things happen in the world.
And that’s what pinball, the whole story of pinball is. And the man who saved pinball, that movie and book, is all about showing the people in Chicago that it wasn’t gambling, it wasn’t a game of chance, it was a game that you develop skill. Yes you had fun, yes you had to put a little money in there, but he showed them.
I learned to get better at something and I learned that whatever I can focus my mind on and do, I can accomplish something. So out of all the things you would think that could lead to that play, can teach your children and continue to teach adults that what you do matters.
Yeah, I love that and I’ve been actively trying to cultivate more opportunities for play in my “for all those reasons, you know. I think it’s just, we leave it behind, like sometimes forgetting that it’s really fun to do things for no other reason than the feeling it gives you in the moment. And then if you can actually, you know, like build skill around that and gain competence at it also, you know.
Connection and all those other.
I mean, you look at the world of online gaming these days, and I’m not a part of that world, but I know folks who are. And they will spend hours and hours and not getting paid to do this. In fact, you know, they’re paying for the privilege of having access to the games and the machines and, and yet it’s just, and it’s effort.
They’re working hard, you know, they’re probably working harder from a sort of a creativity and a cognitive and a collaborative standpoint than they may be doing at their jobs. And yet they’re doing it simply because they love doing it. You know, it’s to them, it is that thing.
It’s play and they get better at it over time and they do it with other people, you know, and it’s“there’s something kind of magical about it.
I don’t necessarily find it surprising for video games to make their way into conversations of flow. Most consider video games to be a medium that delivers the fastest path to flow. But hearing two smart folks express why that is was quite fun.
Nothing overly earthshattering here. It’s just neat to hear “serious” people bring up games in “serious” talks.