Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention Paperback – August 6, 2013

Creativity: The Psychology of Discovery and Invention* by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a brilliant exploration of the inner workings of creativity and the human mind. Whether you’re an artist, entrepreneur, or simply someone interested in understanding how creative breakthroughs happen, this book provides a fascinating blend of psychology, real-world examples, and deep insights.What sets this book apart is its comprehensive approach to creativity, going beyond the idea of it being a mysterious or innate trait. Csikszentmihalyi breaks down the creative process into digestible parts, showing how environment, discipline, curiosity, and flow all play a crucial role in fostering creative discovery. The interviews with a wide variety of highly creative people—including scientists, artists, and business leaders—add incredible depth and context to his theories.One of my favorite takeaways is how Csikszentmihalyi emphasizes the balance between freedom and structure in creative work, and how finding the "flow" state can lead to moments of true innovation. The book not only helped me better understand my own creative process but also offered practical advice for cultivating creativity in everyday life.This is an insightful, inspiring read for anyone who wants to dive deeper into the psychology behind creative genius. Highly recommend!

The media could not be loaded. “This book is about creativity, based on histories of contemporary people who know about it firsthand. It starts with a description of what creativity is, it reviews the way creative people work and live, and it ends with ideas about how to make your life more like that of the creative exemplars I have studied. There are no simple solutions in these pages and a few unfamiliar ideas. The real story of creativity is more difficult and strange than many overly optimistic accounts have claimed. For one thing, as I will try to show, an idea or product that deserves the label ‘creative’ arises from the synergy of many sources and not only from the mind of a single person. It is easier to enhance creativity by changing conditions in the environment than by trying to make people think more creatively. And a genuinely creative accomplishment is almost never the result of a sudden insight, a lightbulb flashing on in the dark, but comes after years of hard work.”~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi from CreativityCreativity with a capital C—the type of Creativity that changes the world.How can we go about cultivating it in our lives? That’s what this book is all about.Our guide is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi—one of the founders of the positive psychology movement. Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced “cheeks sent me high”) is a professor at Claremont Graduate University and the former Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago who wrote the classic book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience .This book features the wisdom gained from over three decades of research along with over one hundred interviews with extraordinary people—from scientists and business leaders to artists and poets.Warning: Although deeply insightful, it’s not an easy read. If you’re looking to understand creativity at a deeper level via one of the world’s leading (and legendary) psychologists then I think you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.Here are some of my favorite Big Ideas:1. What is Creativity - Domain + field + person.2. Attention - + Being kind weird3. Complexity - + Resolving dischotomies.4. Rhythms - Your ideal days?5. Creativity + Flow - The 9 elementsWell, there we go. That’s a super quick look at this great book. Time to get our flow on as we tap into our Creativity and optimize + actualize!More goodness— including PhilosophersNotes on 300+ books in our ​*OPTIMIZE*​ membership program. Find out more at brianjohnson . me.

This was a good if not a great book. Its greatest strength lies in the thesis introduced early on and supported throughout that the kind of creativity that leaves a trace in the cultural matrix rests not in the personal creativity of the individual, but in what Csikszentmihalyi tags the "systems approach " to creativity. To have any effect, a creative idea must be couched in terms that are understandable to others, pass muster with the experts in the field (i.e. the gatekeepers to the domain), and be included within the cultural domain (the set of symbolic rules or procedures) to which it belongs. In this systems view, the definition of a creative person is someone whose thoughts or actions change a domain or establish a new domain (pp. 27-28). This is no easy task, especially since he or she needs to learn the existing domain or domains first, and almost always necessitates being in the right place at the right time (e.g. studying quantum physics at the beginning of the 20th century or women seeking academic opportunities when WWII broke out).Having established this in the first 30 pages, if you didn't read the remaining 350 you wouldn't miss much. But I still enjoyed reading the stories and thoughts of selected individuals whom the author deemed as "creative" according to the definition above (However, I disagreed with the selection of a few of these and would have chosen at least one more person of faith in addition to the Quaker who was briefly highlighted. Also on the issue of faith, I found the author's grouping on page 371 of studying the bible with addictive behaviors such as cruising the internet and betting on horse races to be rather laughable!).Some additional personal nuggets I gleaned from this book include the following:1. Those who persevere and succeed must be creative not only in their manipulation of symbols but maybe even more in shaping a career and a future for themselves that will enable them to survive while continuing to explore the strange universe in which they live (p. 199).2. When seeking to allow your mind to make new connections in a beautiful setting, just sitting and watching is fine, but taking a leisurely walk seems to be even better. The shaping of one's personal space is also important. The Greek philosophers settled on the peripatetic method, preferring to discuss ideas walking up and down in the courtyards of the academy. When we participate in this kind of "semiautomatic activity" that uses a certain amount of attention, we allow the rest of it to be free to make connections among ideas, often from different domains, well below the threshold of conscious intentionality. "Devoting full attention to a problem is not the best recipe for having creative thoughts. "(p. 138)3. Both creativity and innovation on the one hand and conservation and traditionalism on the other are both equally important. "Neither uncritical acceptance nor wholesale dismissal of human creativity will lead us far. " (p. 322)The final section deals with how to enhance personal creativity. Some of these ideas were helpful (e.g. to seek to be surprised and to seek to surprise another person at least once every day, to seek to look at problems from multiple perspectives instead of assuming you see the issue clearly from one perspective, etc.) but others just seem to be taking up space on the page. I'm afraid the phraseology of how to use psychic energy more effectively on page 356 and a few other places lost my interest almost completely.