Prior to Thought is now available for pre-order on Kindle. A print edition is coming too, for those who believe books should have a spine, in both senses of the word ;).
A year ago I published this book in Portuguese, written on a typewriter, without an outline, in the same state it describes. The irony never got old. A book about what happens when thinking gets out of the way, produced in the one condition that reliably made thinking get out of the way. No delete key, no browser tabs, no algorithm suggesting I take a break and watch something.
The book treats flow as what it actually is: a state of consciousness that surfaces when the noise stops. The productivity framework version, the five-step peak performance system, exists. There are excellent books in that genre. This is not one of them.
What I cover here is what Ayrton Senna was describing when he said he was two seconds faster than everyone at Monaco and had no rational explanation for it.
What Lolo Jones lost the moment she thought about improving her stride mid-race and clipped the next hurdle. The neurological state in which the inner critic is not suppressed, it simply is not running.
The book also covers what happens when a group of people enters this state together. The Formula 1 pit stop. The surgical team that operates as a single organism. The jazz ensemble where five musicians become one thing moving in the jam session. Collective flow is a documented neurological state, and most organizations have never seen it because they keep optimizing the wrong variable.
Prior to Thought arrives on Kindle June 30. Print edition also available for the analog readers among you.
Pre-order now → https://a.co/d/0e7eSnQe
