Flow and the Grand Opening Extravaganza

Acme Grand Opening

It was a sunny spring Saturday and I was on a roll. When I worked, Saturdays were all about errands and it was only ten-fifteen and, man, I was checking things off the old index card to-do list to beat the band. I’d dropped and picked up shirts and taken shoes off to be soled and then headed to Upper Montclair pick up some flipchart markers and stop at that CVS with parking to buy ibuprofen and, while I was there, scored some great birthday cards for my kids upcoming birthdays. I bought wine at the wine shop and some brie at the cheese shop next door, and I was “cookin’ with gas.” I was being so productive I decided to skip the obligatory coffee at Starbuck’s.

I swung the car the car right out of the lot and headed for home when I was shocked. There was a new sign on our closed-down grocery store. “ACME,” it said, GRAND OPENING.”

Weeks before, we had been so disappointed when the old A&P closed. It wasn’t all that close to home, but way cheaper than King’s or certainly either Whole Foods close to us. Now there was a new grocery store, ACME. Even though my only association with the name ACME was the company where Wiley Coyote bought his anvils and bombs to kill the Road Runner, I tuned into the half-full parking lot. We were getting low on some staples; I couldn’t believe my luck.

I jumped out of the car. And picked a cart from the full rack outside and walked through the propped-open double doors. I was “cruising.” Down the cereal aisle I got some Grape nuts and Quaker Oatmeal squares, then over to condiments for Grey Poupon and  on to the next aisle for eight cans of Green Giant canned green beans (no salt) to mix with Pip’s food. I swung to the dairy cases swerving around some guys on a ladder fixing a florescent light (“Shouldn’t they have done that yesterday?’) I got some of the little Dannon Stay-Fit yoghurts that Billie likes. (“Wow they have all the flavors. This store’s stocking is great.”)

Then I went to the meat case, oops no thick sliced bacon, (“Damn. Oh wait there’s a manager.”)

I saw a fortyish man in gray chinos and a white shirt and tie talking to a couple of men in jeans.

“Excuse me. Do you have any thick-sliced bacon? Preferably Oscar Meyer or Smithfield but whatever?”

“Ah no it’s not out yet. . Wait. . .Are you SHOPPING?”

‘Well, ye-ah.”

“We’re not  OPEN yet. Didn’t you see the sign GRAND OPENING SUNDAY?! And you picked up all that stuff?”

“Ah. . . yeah.”

“We’re not open yet!

“Ah. . .OK. But do you think you could check me out?”

“NOOOOO! WE’RE NOT OPEN YET! The cash registers aren’t even hooked up.”

I looked around. What I’d taken for other customers were contractors, electricians, painters and other workmen. There really were no cash registers or scanners at the front; they were all stacked at the side of the store. The manager was talking to a work crew who were installing a refrigerated chest next to the one where I was looking for thick-sliced bacon. The guys were all smiling. One was shaking his head.

“Oh. . .  sorry.”

“Now put all that stuff back and come back tomorrow.”

As I left I noticed that the front doors were propped open with saw-horses. The half-full parking lot was all workmen’s trucks and the sign, fully six feet high, said GRAND OPENING …SUNDAY!

I drove home.

My wife still thinks this is the funniest story she has ever heard. She often has me tell it at dinner parties. She thinks it is the perfect example of how completely oblivious I can get when I’m “on a roll,” focused, “zoned out.”

Guilty. An elementary school teacher once described me “Alan is either really doing something, or he isn’t.” That has carried into adulthood and, yes, into my seniority.

I see this same behavior in my grandson, who at four can get so into what he is doing that he has to be reminded to stop to go to the bathroom. I sometimes catch myself doing that, too.

Flow

 A lot has been written about “flow,” the mythical state of intense focus where time floats away, stretches out, when everything you do is easy, natural. In is sometimes referred to as “being in the zone.”

I have personally experienced flow several times in my life. There was a bluebird powder day skiing where my often tentative intermediate skiing was somehow in tune with the mountain, my turns just happened naturally and I floated down the hill. Also once or twice when I was running in my forties the road literally rose to meet me for miles. In woodcarving, I saw the object in the wood and the extraneous material fell rapidly away beneath my chisel for a while. And yes working, there was a great training design session with Ric and Reina, and a well facilitated leadership offsite and more. Even in my new “career,” writing ,sometimes the words just waterfall effortlessly through my fingers and keyboard to screen.

Some, um, time, er, it no happen too like that kind of thing, y’know..

Flow, being “in the zone,” is different from being “zoned out,” obsessively focused to the point of obliviousness. My experience of flow contains a sense of being tapped into something beyond my personal capacity, being in-tune with the Universe.

For me, flow happens after lots of practice and often after many failures, staring at a piece of wood, cutting it badly, with tools that weren’t sharp enough, When I was in the theatre there was a superstition, “disastrous dress rehearsal, spectacular opening night.” Actors often felt so strongly about this that directors used to mess up something at dress rehearsal to put us on our toes for the opening.

Flow and Mindfulness

My occasional obsessive concentration lacks intentional awareness, mindfulness.

In fact, people can speak to me when I am zoned out and I don’t hear them. The ACME GRAND OPENING EXTRAVAGAZA described above came from my errand completion euphoria and my expectation that the Universe was helping with my to-do check marks, but I was just oblivious, I wasn’t in flow.

On my bluebird powder day I was hyper-aware of the out-of-control teenaged snowboarder crossing my path and pulled up long enough to be sure he got up unhurt after his splendiferous crash. My work flow experiences always included interactions and collaborations with others.

My writing flow experiences may include single-minded focus, but they usually follow periods of thought and planning what I am writing about. I am also a new enough writer that I may not have many true flow experiences yet.

Hemingway said “Write without holding back. The next day when you are feeling fresh add a little perfection with your editing.”

I definitely have no flow experiences self-editing.

What is flow and how to get more of it?

“That is the question,” said Hamlet as he weighed suicide vs action in the best example of over-thinking and equivocation ever written. The whole play is an immersion in Hamlet’s lack of flow.

I’m not a psychology researcher*, but here are my beginner-mind ruminations on the subject:

• Flow means you are doing something, i.e., you are using your agency, taking action (unlike Hamlet) and acting by choice, doing something you love.
• Focus and concentration are necessary, but not sufficient for flow.
• The foundation of flow is enough practice, perhaps even failure that is learned from, that when the flow arrives and you “do without thinking,” you are doing something right.
• There is focus, but also awareness. Mindfulness is required. Flow is the antithesis of obliviousness.
• We can have more flow experiences, by doing what we love, practicing in a disciplined way focused on improvement, and being mindful of our surroundings.

Most of all, read the whole sign: GRAND OPENING . . . SUNDAY.

* For more true research on flow read the works of the late Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi