Workplace Mindfulness: Tame the Chaos of Work and Turn it Into Flow with Dr. Jared Weintraub

Goal-setting theory is one of the kind of most supported theories in psychology in general. This is basically the idea that if you set goals that are, you know, pretty specific, that have some sort of time orientation, that are again like challenging yet not overwhelming, that like there's all these beneficial outcomes from, from setting those goals. What does it take to do the impossible? What does it take to level up your game like never before? What does it take for individuals, organizations, for even institutions to achieve paradigm shifting. Nothing is ever the same again. Breakthroughs.

Our mission is to decode the neurobiology of flow and cognitive peak performance, access the minds of maverick scientists, groundbreaking innovators, and world-leading experts to understand what it takes to achieve ultimate human performance so you can feel your best, perform your best, and accomplish your boldest goals. I'm your host, Ryan Dorris. And together with bestselling author Stephen Kotler, I present to you Flow Research Collective Radio.

All right, we got a great pleasure today. I want to welcome Dr. Jared Weintraub to the FRC Radio podcast. Jared, it's great to have you here. Long time overdue.

Thank you so much, Brian. It's absolutely my pleasure. I'm so excited to be here today.

Right on. So Jared is passionate about helping individuals, teams, and organizations create, grow, and maintain purpose-driven, positive, and productive cultures. Jared's got quite a background and experience in this space as a researcher and certainly as a consultant and coach. So Jared's worked with startups, Fortune 500 companies, and organizations really across a wide variety of industries, providing internal and external consulting and coaching to CEOs, startups, managing marketing and sales teams, and so forth. Jared is also an adjunct professor— maybe I should say Dr. Weintraub here— is an adjunct professor who has taught undergraduate and graduate psychology courses. And he recently completed his PhD in applied organizational psychology from Hofstra University, where— which has really brought him here in many ways— he researched flow theory, how, when, and why individuals, teams, and organizations Can Get Into the Zone. So Jared, I think we're gonna have a lot to talk about today. Before we really dive in, I'm curious, what started you off on this path? Was there a moment in your life that flow stood out as a topic you wanted to research and really dive into?

Yeah, yeah. So flow has really been part of my life forever, and I didn't really have a label for, you know, what flow was until really I was doing my master's degree. But I started off as a musician. I really I only wanted to be a musician and perform and play music for people my whole life up until after I graduated college. And so a lot of the feedback that I would get as a performer was how kind of in the moment I was and how I was super focused and in the zone when I performed. And that's really a lot of what people loved about my performances and what I loved about performing, really that feeling of being in flow. And so really that drove me for a long time without knowing what flow was. And then at a certain point after several years of pursuing a career in music, I kind of stopped feeling flow while performing. And that was the trigger for me to say I need to do something different. Like, I stopped feeling flow. I was performing at 10:00 PM, 11:00 PM on Monday nights for free in these tiny clubs in New York City. And I felt like, you know, if I'm not feeling it, then why would other people want to, you know, see me perform or hear me perform? And at that point, I did a major pivot. I started working for startup companies. And I actually felt flow, not knowing what it was at that time, in those moments too, you know, in startup companies, you have, you know, it's challenging, yet you have to kind of meet those challenges in, in your role. And so you're doing tons of exciting different things and talking to a lot of different people and building this, this brand or building these products at a fast pace. And that, you know, those conditions really help to facilitate the feeling of flow. And so during my master's, which I, which I was doing in industrial organizational psychology, to support my work within startups, I read an article about flow, about the differences between mindfulness, flow, and mind wandering. And I remember distinctly it was this article by Scott Dust, who's an incredible researcher who's now actually a close mentor of mine who I've published a couple of articles with. And he describes flow, what it is. And he also talked about how flow is really understudied in the workplace in particular. In particular. And again, with this history that I had around flow with performing and then in my workplace, I felt like, you know, if I can help people to get into flow in the workplace and more broadly as well, and if I can, you know, learn to do the research to help understand what flow is, what, you know, can help people to get into flow at work and kind of combine that research with practice, then that seemed like a really great path for me that I became really passionate about since that time. So that's really what led me to, you know, where I am now.

Right on. And I'm excited to jump into those articles. I think, you know, the listeners today are going to learn a lot about the intersection of mindfulness training and finding flow and additional attentional systems, uh, really going into understanding how to nudge themselves into flow in the workplace and really how to master this kind of dynamic between doing and being and overcoming multitasking. So we're gonna get into a lot of that, Jared. I'm really stoked to jump in, but let's just go back a little bit if you can. Tell me what it was like when you were performing in flow in those clubs as a musician versus when you felt like you weren't in flow. And yeah, what, what's your instrument? Uh, and really, yeah, take us back there if you could.

Yeah, so I sing and play guitar, uh, mostly, mostly acoustic guitar. I'm, you know, singer-songwriter, so I was writing my own stuff and performing it and also did a bunch of covers as well. And And yeah, the only way that I could really think to describe it is when I would perform in flow. And I distinctly remember kind of teaching myself how to do that when I was really young, because I could feel the difference of like performances when I was in flow and then the performances when I was not in flow. And when you're in flow while performing, it just feels smooth is like the way that I can best describe it. It just feels effortless. You just do it. It feels great. You can almost— you can like improvise a little bit more without feeling kind of silly about doing it. It feels just like really rewarding and just you're in your happy place, right? So a lot of times you finish the performance and it's like, wow, that's over, right? And you feel this like rush of energy during it, but then at the end you just kind of like feel yourself come down almost and like, wow, like what? What was that kind of a thing? And when you're not in flow and performing, often you'll second-guess yourself a little bit more. It feels— there's like a lot more friction or tension during that, during that performance where you have to put a lot more effort in and it just feels off in some way. And so that's what ended up happening. It felt off more often than I felt on. And it stopped being fun really. So, you know, when you're in flow, it just feels great and so much fun. So, That's how I would describe the difference.

Yeah, it sounds like, you know, quite a long time since you've gone through your master's and your PhD program now. So are you back playing in clubs when you get a chance and finding more flow again? Or—

yeah, you know, it's funny is when I pivoted and started working in the startups and then was doing my master's when I was living in Washington, D.C., I started to do open mics in D.C. and immediately felt flow again. Once I kind of stopped having flow as my— I mean, sorry, having, um, performing or being a musician as like my, my job, I started to feel it again in, in those kind of fun times when I would do it just as a, I think, to blow off steam outside of school. Um, and I started to perform a little bit more. It's been a couple of years just because of, of COVID and all of that since I've, since I performed. But once things calm down, I definitely plan to start doing it again as a side, as a side hobby, um, and, and start playing a lot more.

Right on, right on. Well, let's jump in into some of your research now. So one of your large chapters you published was on mindfulness workplace, you know, workplace mindfulness theory and research. And, uh, incredible article. You went into a lot of, understandably, the benefits of mindfulness. But I thought maybe just as a, yeah, as a novel way to look at this study, could we start off with some of the, you know, maybe detrimental mindfulness outcomes that you found out? And I thought Maybe an interesting way to start us off here would be to describe the difference between being and doing. You mentioned Lydie Good's theory of being while doing, and maybe break that down for us and then maybe start to share some of the detrimental outcomes of mindfulness perhaps in the workplace.

Sure. I guess first we can talk a little bit about what the differences are between these different cognitive states. I think it was Dane, who creates this structure of the differences between cognitive states. So there's two different dimensions. One dimension is the time orientation. So there's present moment focus, past focus, or future focus. And then the other is the attentional breadth. So this is like you either have very wide attentional breadth and you're thinking about or focused on a whole bunch of different things at once or just taking in the whole environment, or you have a very narrow attentional breath, which is like you're focused on one thing, you're being very detail-oriented, and you're honed in to that one thing. Mindfulness and flow overlap in ways as far as the present moment focus. Mindfulness and flow are both focused on the here and the now. But where they differ is that when you're being mindful, you have a much wider attentional breadth. You're kind of letting yourself feel all of the feels, right? Thinking all of the things and kind of letting go, but still being in the moment, right? What flow is like a very narrow attentional breadth where you're sort of focused on the task at hand. You have clear goals. And you're honed into the zone, really focused on that thing that you're doing. And that's kind of like the big difference. And then we have other attentional states such as mind wandering, rumination, and fantasizing. And these ideas are really— so mind wandering is this kind of broad attentional breath where you're not really focused on the right now. You're just sort of focused on a whole bunch of things. Your mind is kind of wandering all over the place, but you're not focused on now. You might be focused on the future or the past when your mind is wandering. Then rumination is really, um, you're really focused on one thing, like you're thinking about what you did, um, you know, the other day that was really embarrassing, or something that— it could be a good thing too, right? Thinking about a nice memory that you had that happened in the past. But then fantasizing is like a future-oriented state. So you're thinking about, oh, you know, like, I hope that this happens in the future, this specific thing, or I hope that this thing doesn't happen in the future. And you're like worrying about future states. And so all of these cognitive states have their purpose. There's like good and bad, you know, ups and downs about each of them. And so one of the things that I've thought about a lot over the last few years is how do we recognize these different states? How do we learn how to use each of them to our advantage while trying to mitigate the disadvantages of each of them? For mindfulness, we have this broad attentional state that helps us to understand what we're feeling in the moment, to think about our environment, to hear people when they're speaking to you and really try to understand their points of view, right? So there's some of that, like, attentional, that emotional intelligence that happens with mindfulness. So those are kind of the good things about mindfulness, right? It helps us to relax, it helps us to understand ourselves and others. But when you're kind of focused on a whole bunch of different things at once, it's hard to hone in on one thing and to, like, get things done. And so Mindfulness is often more— this is the Liddy and— I forget the— Liddy and Good, right? Yeah. This is the Liddy and Good being while doing. Mindfulness is more of a being state where you're being conscious of things that are happening around you and feeling the feels like I was saying. But it's hard to do the doing part of it because you have to focus on one thing. You have to take action and have some sort of goals. And mindfulness is often not a goal-oriented state. In fact, much of the time you want to avoid specific goals while you're being mindful because you want to just see what are the things that come across your mind. And understand that part of your subconscious, I guess, and let it go and just be.

All right, well said, Jared. And I know there's also a lot of benefits of mindfulness to finding flow, so let's— we'll keep diving into that. One of the descriptions that I really enjoyed, and I think you may have come across this in your research too, this differentiating between mindfulness and flow, is that In mindfulness, it's as if we're sitting on the edge of the river watching the stream of consciousness flow, whereas in flow state, perhaps we're kind of diving into that river, kind of getting swept, engage and grow. So I'm not sure if that's a metaphor analogy you've used too, or—

Yeah, I personally haven't used that one, but I like it a lot because flow is a much more doing state. Again, like the, um, kind of the ups of the upsides of flow or sometimes the downsides of mindfulness and vice versa. I kind of have, have, um, thought about them as almost like a yin and yang type of thing, right? And so with flow, you are really focused on that thing that you're doing. It's a much more doing state where you are executing on whatever the thing is that you thought that you wanted to be doing, um, but you're also With flow, you're blocking out distractions, right? Which is often a very good thing when you're trying to focus on a singular task or whatever the task is at hand. But, you know, we're thinking about a workplace example. If you're a manager and you're in flow all day, every day, which, you know, we at FRC, we know that's not possible or, you know, not something that we actually even want to really strive for. But if you're in flow, a lot of the time as a manager, you're focused on like your individual tasks, right? And you're blocking out distractions. But as a manager, your job is often to pass information on to other people or to help other people to, you know, deal with their issues. And so, you know, people might be emailing you. Sometimes people are knocking on your door or coming up to your desk and you're just basically ignore them because you're blocking out distractions. And distractions themselves can be a wide range of things, right? So what we kind of label as distractions in our mind could actually be detrimental to getting your, your job done as well, or to helping others if you, you know, if you don't pay attention to that.

Yeah, well said. One of the— well, I want to go through a few of the other interesting findings. One was that You mentioned how mindfulness could be used to manipulate unhappy employees into accepting their current situation and kind of becoming pacified in their place in the organization. Seems like, yeah, the interesting nuance there to describe, you know, how mindfulness might have that detriment, but flow could maybe be an opposite or more adaptive mental state. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So mindfulness can often be used as a band-aid for a deeper symptom that organizations have. So when we teach ourselves to be mindful, we sort of like, let, again, like help ourselves to be less stressed out, to control our emotions a little bit better, to understand how we're feeling. But if the work situation that you're in is abusive or really not making you happy because of the type of work that you're doing or because of the amount of stress that that work itself causes you and you're kind of using mindfulness as a crutch to get over those things, then that's not what we want to encourage in the workplace. You want to try to get at the real underlying issues there. And so mindfulness can be used to kind of get people to forget, oh yeah, like actually these are deeper issues here, but just go meditate, relax, and get over it and like keep doing your work kind of a thing.

Yeah, you also mentioned how mindfulness kind of leads to this decoupling of the self from experiences and emotions. And, you know, and build on that and maybe even tie it to the role of the self. I know you— some of your research on using nudges and goals is about, you know, connecting back to self-determination. So yeah, anything more you can say about the kind of the detrimental effects of decoupling the self from maybe the workplace and how else to work with the self in that context?

Yeah, so I think some mindful practices are about stepping outside of yourself and often observing your thoughts and decoupling yourself from being in that moment as you, if that makes sense. And instead, you step out and you think, Why am I feeling these things? And more of an analytical, again, this being state. And so if your work or the things that you're doing require you to be more connected to yourself in the moment rather than analyzing yourself in that moment, then it might not be the best state for you to be in at that time. Again, the thing is that there's like a time and place for all of these things, and that the default mode, let's say, is that we kind of go in and out of these different states naturally throughout the day. And so you could find yourself being in a mindful state at a time where like flow would actually be more beneficial or vice versa. And the idea is that if we can understand these different states through research, but also as individuals, we might be able to recognize, okay, I'm about to be on this phone call where I need to be totally connected in the moment and use my emotions in the moment rather than analyze the emotions of the moment. Then you can hone in on those ideas and those skills at that time rather than just kind of letting it happen and seeing, you know, where things go in the moment. Yeah.

Could you describe— you mentioned, you know, if we were to jump right into a workplace setting, could you walk us through maybe how you help, you know, those that you consult identify where is the opportune time for mindfulness or flow or mind wandering or fantasies?

Or—

and, and how do you kind of coach people to, you know, maybe be intentional about which mindset they're going to enter these different contexts?

Yeah, sure. So obviously there's a lot of variation depending on the individual situation, right? And so that's like a big part of the one-on-one coaching is very much about first understanding like what people do, you know, and, and how much each of these different things are important to the different tasks that they might be doing. But in general, when we're talking about sort of individualized tasks, right, flow is really, um, you is really key. So sitting down, writing a report, right? That's a time when you want to be able to focus on like one task, do that report, get it done, get it done right. And, you know, being in flow helps you to kind of get the time to go by a little bit faster. And so in those moments, we, we try to say like, you know, do what you can to block out distractions, right? Block your time in certain ways so that You're not going to be checking your email, you're not going to be doing these other things so that you're letting people know not to bother you, those kinds of things. But then in more like group settings or in sort of brainstorming sessions, mindfulness might be a little bit more important or more useful. So we think about being in a meeting with people rather than blocking out distractions and really just focusing on your point of view and getting that across and sort of talking over people and not considering sort of alternative views. You know, we encourage people to be a little bit more mindful when people are talking, really like listen and be rather than do in those moments, hear what they're saying, try to kind of feel your initial reactions to their words and understand why you might be feeling those things. And that's a better kind of mindful moment. And again, like these states fluctuate pretty quickly between each other because you could switch it off right away and say, okay, I hear what you're saying, and then get into flow with your idea and putting that forward. And it's this kind of interplay between these states. I also think that You know, mind wandering, fantasizing, ruminating— these things kind of have a bad rap, right? Because they're often associated with some negative outcomes like anxiety, depression, things like that. But in reality, they can be just like a break from the day. Like, if you're having a hard day and you think about, you know, some exciting things that you have coming up in the future Or you just kind of like are reflecting on a nice thing that happened in the past. Like that can be the, like the refresh that you need in that moment to then like refocus and get back in the, you know, in the flow of things during the day. And then even like in a meeting, right. There's tons of meetings that happen that are totally unnecessary wastes of time. Right. And so if you're in a meeting and you know, like this meeting is kind of pointless, I like don't actually really need to even be here. Right. You're not even going to be talking during this meeting and you're just thinking about, okay, after this meeting, like I need to do this, this, and this task, right? You're sort of organizing your mind and planning for the rest of the day. Once that meeting is over, if you actually execute on those things and get into flow and do that, then that kind of fantasizing, right, for just the technical label of it, is actually really useful in that moment. So, you know, this is just an example of, again, like there's ups and downs of each of these things.

Do you find that individuals— I'm sure it's quite individual to each person— have a preference between being mindful, flow, in flow, you know, fantasizing or ruminating, Is that kind of part of your process of coaching, helping them kind of understand their default mode, as you mentioned, and kind of developing skill sets for each one of those unique to their kind of personality? Or—

Yeah, yeah, I think that's— that is the case, is kind of like understanding individuals' baselines and seeing, you know, are they on the right path? Are there different, you know, different states that they don't experience as often as others? And, you know, I think initially people always just assume flow is like the best, most desirable thing. And in a lot of ways, I think it is, right? It can be. But oft— you know, sometimes people are in flow almost too often and they need to learn to like take that break and kind of reset their their mindset, to make sure that the things that they're doing are actually the most beneficial to them, and to, um, you know, do that recovery that we talk about at FRC too, um, to make sure that, you know, you're really setting yourself up for the, you know, to be as successful or the best self that you can be.

Well said. So let's jump now into the benefits of mindfulness for finding flow. So you, you mentioned a number of interesting studies, one by Hamilton and I think it's Schutt that demonstrated mindfulness intervention given to cyclists reduced anxiety, facilitated flow. You mentioned a study by Butzer on how yoga increased flow in musicians. So I'm curious if you got a yoga practice going on here for yourself. And then one other one that I thought was just interesting by Jackson, who, you know, referenced how the inhibition of thinking, of the thinking mind, and in mindfulness can facilitate that kind of loss of self-consciousness, which helps with that absorption we find in flow. So yeah, curious to maybe just hear your general take on how mindfulness influences or promotes flow, and feel free to jump on any of those studies or others.

Yeah, yeah. So this is an area that I'm very interested in, obviously, how these states interact with each other. There isn't too much research on it. And actually the research that I'm currently doing is really focused on this as well, as well as my dissertation was on this idea. And so I think that mindfulness can really help facilitate flow because it's actually, there are like exercises that you can do in the moment to be mindful and to build some of the skills that are required for flow. And so flow, to get into flow, you need to have, you know, the challenge-skill balance. So this is, you know, as I'm sure, you know, many of the listeners that are, are hearing us today are familiar with, but the idea here is that to be in flow, you have to have a high degree of challenge. So you're sort of pushing yourself to the edge of your abilities, but you also need to have the skills to meet that challenge. Otherwise, if you have you have too much challenge and too little skill, then you feel anxiety. If you have too much skill and too little challenge, then you, you know, feel boredom. And so what mine— but I guess something to kind of point out about that challenge-skill balance is that it's often perception, right? Challenge and skill are both sometimes quantifiable but are often subjective, right? So something that you think is really challenging might not be as challenging as you think it is if you, you know, have, you know, understand it a little bit more. If you take a little time to take a step back and sort of analyze the situation a little bit more, or if you, I know you can build your skill up a little bit more. Maybe you're self-conscious about your level of skill and you don't believe that actually you have the skill that you do. And so With mindfulness, it helps us to reduce anxiety and reduce stress. It can help you to reframe that challenge to be a little bit less challenging or to feel a little bit less stressful for you. That helps to get that challenge-skill balance, that ratio a little bit in check, a little bit more balanced for you so that you can hit that that flow, right? That you can get into flow. The other thing is that flow requires attentional control, right? The ability to refocus. You get distracted on something and you need to bring your attention back to the present moment. And again, going back to the similarities between mindfulness and flow, there is that present moment state, right? They're both focused on the here and the now. In mindfulness practice, in meditation, a lot of it is often about bringing your mind back from wandering to the right now. If you're focusing on your breath or you're doing some counting, part of a mindful practice is to recognize, hey, I've stopped focusing on my breathing, or I stopped counting, or I stopped doing my mantra, whatever it is that your practices, that mindful practice helps you to recognize that and then bring yourself back to that moment and do that exercise. And so that's sort of a muscle that you build, that ability to A, recognize that you've come off task, and B, to refocus yourself. And that ability to refocus helps you to get into flow. So that's why I think mindfulness helps to foster flow in that way, because it's that same kind of skill to stay in the present moment and focus on the here and the now that drives flow as well.

Right on. And I'm wondering, you mentioned in this study also specific benefits to attention, cognition, really understanding kind of how mindfulness can increase cognitive flexibility, really its relationship to emotions. So I'm wondering, just Generally speaking, is there any other kind of massive benefits from mindfulness that you really just love to speak about? One I'll just share that I thought was really interesting. You mentioned how meditators' brains were estimated to be 7.5 years younger than those in control studies. So yeah, I'm just curious. I thought that was fascinating. Any other general benefits of mindfulness you'd love to mention?

I mean, I really think that the two core ones are what we've talked about, right? This ability to focus, and I think that the stress reduction is huge, right? I think mindfulness also helps with just being more comfortable with yourself, right? Understanding yourself a little bit more, recognizing, again, going back to like this emotional intelligence thing, understanding how you feel in the moment, which also helps you to think about how others feel and kind of stepping into We were talking about that decoupling, being able to take yourself out of your own self and thinking about others. I think that's really important as well, that empathy. But I think that the ability to control your own emotions, to reduce your stress in the moment at that at will, right, to take that step back and focus on your breathing and relax a little bit is so important for so many different reasons. And it's so simple, right? It's just such an easy, simple thing to do. Easy in that, like, you're just focusing on your, your breathing, but it's, it's actually something that unless you are intentional about it, it can be challenging to do that in a way that actually helps you relax unless you like take the time to work on that skill. So I just really love the simplicity of it.

Yeah. You know, I think we're obviously generally speaking here around the importance of self-regulation or self-control and how you kind of mentioned self-awareness is part of that emotion regulation and then also kind of attentional control. We shift to your other studies. We hear so much, right, about the benefits of mindfulness. It's almost like it's been talked about so much, I feel like sometimes it loses some of its, uh, yeah, the novelty we get when we hear about it or get introduced to a new mindful practice. Is there anything you've, you've done to make mindfulness, uh, yeah, I don't know if attractive is the right word, just something that people are willing to to really give a shot and not kind of push off? Because again, it's just so spoken about. I feel like there's almost aversion to it to some degree these days.

Yeah, I think a lot of it, and we talk about this in the chapter a little bit, is that the association between like mindfulness and spirituality, which there is a strong association. There's a lot of, if you look at like most religions or spiritual practices, there is a mindfulness aspect. There's something to do with mindfulness in most of them, at least the ones that I know about. But the reality is that mindfulness does not have to be a spiritual endeavor. It can be a skill that is, you know, completely outside of that idea, that's outside of like the spirituality, and it's actually just an exercise like walking or running or weightlifting that has a lot of like physical, you know, benefits that, that people might be, you know, might not think about because of the spirituality that's associated with it. And so I try to, especially in like the corporate worker in, in the workplace, You know, it's actually important to stay away from that in a lot of contexts because you don't want to bring religion into the workplace because of just being inclusive and not kind of keeping church and state separate, let's say, right? And so I think showing people what the benefits are, I mean, thinking about that study that you mentioned where people people's brains literally were 7 years— you looked 7 years younger, right, in the mindfulness group compared to the control group. That— studies like that just show like the physical benefits that are, you know, outside of the spiritual state. So I try to focus on those things, keep it, you know, keep it really about those kinds of benefits. And then if people bring it into the spiritual realm, which which I, you know, totally support as well, then that, then that's great too.

Right on. I appreciate that, Jared. So let's jump into one of your, your other studies. So nudging flow through SMART goal setting to decrease stress, increase engagement, and increase performance at work. Tell us a little bit about this research. What is nudging? And yeah, how can we increase goal setting and performance through it.

Yeah. Yeah. So this study was really the culmination of like all of my lives into one thing, which is really exciting. So obviously we've talked about my passion for flow and how flow has all these great benefits, especially in the workplace. We can think about flow reducing stress and improving engagement and performance, which are all like super important things in the workplace right now. And in my startup work, I had worked for, for education technology companies that helped people to develop skills that helped them in the workplace. And so when I started to do flow research, I really wanted to look into interventions and interventions in the workplace have been very understudied because they're, it's very difficult to, to do studies where you're running experiments and where organizations allow you to kind of run experiments on their employees. And so I wanted to try to test these out because there really weren't any interventions that had been like empirically studied at work. And so what I was kind of looking at different options for different types of interventions, one that was sort of a low-hanging fruit that had some empirical support in the past was for goal setting. And so goal setting theory is one of the kind of most supported theories in psychology in general. This is basically the idea that if you set goals that are, you know, pretty specific, that have some sort of time orientation, that are again like challenging yet not overwhelming, that like there's all these beneficial outcomes from, from setting those goals. At the same time, clear goals are one of the prerequisites of getting into flow. So I felt like, okay, here's a place where theory and practice can like really come together. What if we encourage people to set goals and we use the SMART goal framework, which also has a good amount of support in the literature to try to get people to get into flow. And also show that flow leads to these positive outcomes at work because flow is just understudied in the workplace in general. And so we said, okay, how can we actually get people to do this? How can we encourage them to set goals? And that's where the idea of nudges came in. So nudges are a tool essentially that Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein wrote a book about in 2008. Thaler ended up getting a Nobel Prize in Economics for this idea. And the idea is basically that nudges help people to make the best choice for themselves without making them mandatory. And so nudges basically have 3 theoretical underpinnings of them. So they have to be really easy to act on, or actually a default thing that you don't have to do anything to act upon. So one example of what's called like a default mode nudge is having people contribute to their 401(k)s by default. So when you join a company, instead of having you opt in to contribute to those 401(k)s, it automatically happens. You can decide you don't want to do that, and you certainly have the option to change the way that it happens, but by default, You know, you start contributing and they found that like when you do this type of nudge, that the amount of people who end up contributing to 401(k)s goes up by like a crazy amount. So they have to be easy. They have to be optional. So again, the idea is you can change that choice and they also have to lead to a positive outcome. So there's all this research about why, you know, contributing to your 401(k) is good for your kind of long-term financial outlook. And so, you know, I love this idea of nudges. I think it's something really exciting, and that technology is sort of going into a place where these can be applied a lot easier and more effectively. And so I said, okay, why don't we nudge people in the beginning of the day to set SMART goals? And so we had a control group and an experimental group of individuals that we recruited online across a whole bunch of different types of work. For the experimental group, we sent them a text in the morning, essentially. So that was the nudge. We said, here are what SMART goals are. So SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-oriented. And we gave them an example. So we said, this is what they mean, and here's an example of what a SMART goal is. Set 3 SMART goals for today. And, you know, throughout the day we would ping them and ask them to fill out basically 30-second measures of, you know, what state that they were in. And at the end of the day, we would also say like, how did you perform today? And had them do a self-reported performance and engagement measures. We did that for a week. And at the end of the week, we found out, you know, We analyzed the data and we saw that people who did those SMART goals, who set those SMART goals, they felt flow more frequently. Again, that really helped them to focus on the things that they needed to accomplish during the day. That flow led to less stress throughout the day and throughout the week. People were more engaged and felt that they performed better than the control group. So those are some really exciting findings and really easily implementable, right? You can actually— and the sort of genesis of this idea was that I did this to myself. I set reminders for myself in the morning to set these goals and then to execute on those goals throughout the day. So you can implement this right now for yourself, and hopefully that will help. Helping you to get more flow throughout the day and the week.

Incredible, Jared. So it's one nudge is setting SMART goals in the morning. What other nudges have you found helpful with clients, or any interesting novel ones that kind of catch your memory that you'd like to share of different approaches to use nudges?

Or yeah, so we're still working on, you know, different ones right now. Um, you know, one, one nudge is just, uh, when you're thinking about, you know, email campaigns to try to get people to fill out surveys, you know, using some of the sort of behavioral economics or behavioral science, like, theory or whatever to get people to want to participate more, like telling people that others have contributed to this, this idea of social norm, you know, telling people, you know, not to miss their chance at contributing, letting them know how much their what their ideas mean to you, right? So some of that can help to help get people to do what you want them to do and also to lead to more positive outcomes for them.

It's like— Sorry to cut you off there, Jared. I was just curious, as like a manager or leader for a team, is there a way that some, you know, share a nudge, like a helpful reminder in a way that will be best received? Do you have any kind of insight around that?

Or— Yeah, I mean, so there's lots of different kind of, let's say, strategies for that, right? And some of them are what I was just talking about, right? So letting people know like, hey, everybody else has done this, like you should try, you know, you should be contributing to the group kind of a thing. That's really effective. People want to help contribute to the team, to be part of the group, right? So that's this idea of social norms. What organizations are doing too are actually nudging managers to do certain leadership behaviors themselves, which helps the team. So an example is to, you know, before a meeting, nudging a manager to say, hey, you're about to have this meeting, Make sure that you leave some time at the end of the meeting for your, your team to give feedback or to ask questions, right? So small nudges that essentially bring kind of these, these ideas to the forefront that managers might not be thinking about so that they do these little behaviors that actually can make a big difference, especially over time.

You mentioned in your conclusion just the high cost of a lack of work engagement in the US economy as a result of kind of mental health challenges, burnout, perhaps even a lack of flow in the workplace. What's been the impact of using nudges? If you're to think about infusing the workforce with nudges increasing flow as a result. Any kind of estimates of, you know, how that might improve economic numbers for the U.S. or elsewhere?

Yeah. Well, yeah, I've done very little as far as, you know, making an impact nationally, let's say, right, or even more broadly. But I think that— and also nudges can be— they're very variable in like how effective they are. You have to be done them well, and you have to make sure that you're implementing them responsibly and measuring their effectiveness and tweaking them so that they become better over time too. But I really do think that they can have a major impact. I don't know how to quantify, like, what those numbers would, would be right now, but I think about using nudges to push out thought leadership, to push about best practices to help drive more inclusive workplaces, right? To help drive more psychological safety, right? To have people, you know, for example, like if you're more of an introvert, right? And you get a nudge to speak up during a meeting, right? Where you might be, you know, not, that might not be your natural state, but if, you know, you are an introvert and you have a lot of great ideas, if you get a little nudge that just reminds you, hey, like, you know, speak up, or if a manager gets a nudge to ask specific people questions so that, you know, it kind of draws them into the conversation, I think that they can have major impacts in, you know, a lot of different ways across tons of different types of work and types of behaviors, really.

I love the practicality of a nudge. I also like, just love the word nudge. It feels nice.

And me too. Me too.

Yeah. Go right to Csikszentmihalyi's, you know, work around flow and first describing flow as kind of a sense of order in consciousness and the importance of bringing intentionality to order that of how we're interpreting our life or, you know, the, the context we're in. Uh, it just seems like, yeah, it's a really incredibly, um, simple yet powerful approach to ordering consciousness with these nudges, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And I think with the amount of data and data sources that we now have access to, these nudges can, uh, kind of connect the dots across different you know, data systems and passive and active data, right? Even like bio data and other kinds of things to help, you know, people recognize these things and to bring patterns to the forefront, you know, and help people be more intentional about what they're doing in a way that just like wasn't possible before. So I think it's really really exciting. And, you know, there's potential for these nudges to also reduce the amount of, like, thinking that people have to do, or, like, unnecessary thinking that people have to do, and just say, like, hey, just remember, like, here's a reminder kind of to do this or focus on this in the next hour. You know, I'm even thinking about— we talk about at FRC, like, chunking our time and like even the idea of like not answering email during a certain, you know, during a certain chunk of time, but then making sure to look at it at the appropriate time, right? A nudge could help to facilitate that and say, hey, like, you know, sometimes when we're in flow, we lose track of time, right? That's one of the great things about it, but that could be a detriment. We were talking about the ups and downs, right? If you need to to switch tasks, a nudge could be a good way of getting you to switch tasks at the right time without having to worry about losing that track of time. You have something that sort of gives some sort of training wheels to get you there. So I think there's a lot of potential for these types of systems in the future.

It's amazing, Jared. I'm excited to see how you integrate nudges into a whole whole wide range of workplaces, but also, you know, different contexts and environments, how this is again just could make it a massive impact. So I'm looking at you as the world leader here in nudges and different impacts that you're going to make from this simple but obviously quite a profound technique that gives you the opportunity to understand people's context, right? And really learn how to reinforce those kind of behaviors and attitudes. So right on, Jared. It's well done on that study. I really enjoyed it. So let's go to your last one before just some final questions here. So you mentioned, or so you have the study called Mindful Multitasking, Disentangling the Effect of Polychronicity on Work-Home Conflict and Life Satisfaction. So, you know, I typically, when we hear multitasking, almost jump right away to, oh, this is a negative behavior to be engaged in. But you actually shared maybe some counter approach if mindfulness was applied to multitasking. So tell us a little bit about that study and yeah, some big takeaways.

Yeah, so this is, this is my first study actually I was involved with. And this actually was, I co-authored this with, with Scott Dust and another, another colleague of ours who I mentioned who I mentioned earlier. Scott was the one who actually inspired me to, to get into flow research with his article. And so this study basically looked at the role of what they call polychronicity. This is kind of a fancy term for the idea that people prefer to do or think about multiple tasks at a time rather than focusing at— on one at a time. And so what we found basically was without mindfulness, so if you're not a mindful person, if you don't kind of have a mindful practice, then being a polychronic person, someone who multitasks or who prefer— has a preference for multitasking, leads to an imbalance or like what they call work-life conflict. So this is the idea that if you have problems at work, work, then those problems kind of spill into your, your kind of outside of work life, right? So if you have a bad day at work, then you're kind of a jerk when you go home, and that causes issues at home. Or if you have problems at home, then you, you know, kind of come into work the next day, and those problems can spill into the workplace. And so what What the study basically found was like, barring mindfulness, people who multitask tend to have more of that work-life conflict, and they're also less satisfied with their lives in general. And so that's obviously not a great thing, and it makes people think that, you know, multitasking is, is really bad, which there's a good amount of evidence for, right? But then we said, okay, well, what about people people who are more mindful. And actually, the, the study found that people who are more mindful and who are also polychronic end up having less of that work-life conflict, and they also experience more life satisfaction. So the idea is basically that by being mindful, you're actually able to separate those lives a little bit and those issues a little that you feel a little bit happier with your, with your life in general. And so it kind of flips that relationship, which is really interesting and sort of surprising, right? I mean, you, you wouldn't really think that. And it just— I think the, the kind of underlying thing here is that mindfulness does help you to just separate yourself a little bit, like to decouple those things. Like we kind of touched upon a little bit earlier. And to keep, again, like, you know, church and state a little bit separated and realize, like, just because I had a bad day at work or just because I had a bad day at home doesn't mean that I have to, you know, let that spill over. And, you know, I'm able to handle kind of multiple tasks or multiple ideas in a more healthy way, I guess, because of the ability— or I don't know if I would draw like too, too strong of a connection here just with one study, but, you know, there's support for the idea that mindfulness helps us to manage multiple tasks at once and to, you know, separate our different, you know, domains of life from each other.

I think that's the big part that just really stands out for me is, you know, working with a lot of, you know, our clients at FRC and elsewhere, just the ability to, as we call, live like a lion, right? To be fully on time, to be fully on, and then to really shift. And I'm going to take a little bit of a detour. Hopefully it all connects here. Now, one of the things that I've really been thinking a lot about is how flow is a goal-oriented state. State and how appropriate it is to be goal-oriented and in flow, let's say, when you're in the workplace. But then when you return home and maybe you have young children, still being in that goal-oriented state might not, you know, might not be as beneficial because you're not able to achieve those goals to the same degree. Or, you know, all the chaos that we arrive at when we come home and how really shifting to that kind of mindful state, that being state, is, yeah, just maybe often so much more appropriate. And so I'm not sure if, you know, this study spoke about that a little bit more in that kind of decoupling, that context shifting that I think just so many of our listeners are learning to master, right?

Yeah, no, I agree. I agree with everything that you just said. I also think even within the workplace, like within the same day, right, being able to take that break and be a little bit more mindful and help to reduce that stress for yourself and recharge a little bit in the moment. If you take, you know, 15, 20, 30-minute break and that helps you to recharge and, you know, get back to that flow state in the right context. And at home too, I think You know, being in flow sometimes, getting your chores done, making sure that the kids, you know, are doing the things that they need to do to get ready for school or to, you know, whatever. Um, you know, again, it's, it's, it's, it's being able to, uh, develop the skill sets, the, the competencies to switch between these, understand them and use them appropriately.

Yeah, right on, Jared. This is so much fun. So just a few more questions then. So, you know, I know you do a lot of consulting internally within organizations and also externally as a coach and, and whatnot. Uh, any other general insights or stories you'd like to share of just, you know, the, the joy you get out of being a coach and consultant. I think it's quite a fun experience to, to be mindful, to also find flow. So yeah, any other general kind of stories or, uh, yeah, general kind of thoughts on, you know, the work that you get to do and what it means to you?

Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for kind of giving me the opportunity to talk about those, those different things. So, um, as an industrial organizational psychologist, we really try to evangelize this idea of being a research practitioner, right? So using the research, using the academic literature to inform practice. And it's often a really difficult thing to do because each— both research and practice are difficult skill sets that take time to develop. And I feel really grateful that I'm able to conduct flow research to really dig into the theory behind these different concepts and understand them at that theoretical level, but then also to try to apply them in practice. And so with my research, I'm able to, again, dig into the different readings, understand what the researchers before me have done. But then with the coaching and consulting, I really get to see it in practice and see the difference that it can make in people's lives. Especially with the one-on-one coaching, right? And so I have definitely seen clients come in, they feel stressed, they feel disorganized, you know, they feel, you know, sometimes they feel lost. They don't know what they, what they want at this stage of their careers or their lives in general. And to be able to use the the competencies, the different kind of skills that we, you know, we learn and we teach at FRC, and to, to walk people through some of the different exercises that we do and see week by week how those things really make a difference. It's really powerful and exciting to kind of bring it to that one-on-one level and see it at an individual level, like how it actually helps. So I've seen people you know, get major promotions, feel so much less stress over the course of their time, you know, with us. And that's so exciting to see and really empowering for me to keep going and to keep doing this research and also the practice, but also just rewarding to be able to make that difference in people's lives. So, Yeah, I just feel grateful for that opportunity and to be able to live that research practitioner lifestyle that we strive for is really, really great.

Right on. So you're obviously a leader in delivering evidence-based flow interventions to your clients. I'm wondering, what are the questions that maybe we still don't have answers yet? In regards to flow research?

Yeah, so I think one of the— there's a couple of really exciting areas that I'm interested in. One is obviously continuing to develop empirically-based interventions. There's really not that many that have actually been tested. So that's exciting. There's a bunch out there that I won't give away right now. But that, there's still some low-hanging fruit there for some studies that could be done to say like, does this actually work to help foster flow or not? I also think there's a lot of work to be done in the team space. So like group flow and team flow are areas that are really understudied because they're hard to study. The question of like, what is group flow or what is team flow? Like, if I'm in— if we're a group of 10 people, um, you know, is group flow just the idea that like all 10 of us are in flow together? What's that threshold? Is it 2 of us out of 10 people? 3? 5? 7? All 10? You know, what, what constitutes that group flow? Is it just each of us individually being in flow, or is there a higher order group synthesis. As a musician, being in flow with my bandmates is something that I've experienced so much. It's a different thing than being— that I've experienced too in startups where I'm doing one task, somebody else is doing another task, and we're all in flow at the same time, but not together, if that makes sense. So it's less interdependent. So I think that's like a theory and practice area that is very understudied. And sort of related but a little bit different is the idea of flow contagion. So there's this idea of emotional contagion where like if I come into work and I'm really depressed or just having a hard day and just like acting like, I don't know, I'm like, I don't feel like being here today, then my emotions will actually be contagious and the people around me will feel that as well. And like the whole group kind of suffers because of that. Or the opposite can be true where I come in, I'm really positive, I'm excited to be here, and some people might be feeling less excited. And because they see how excited I am, they kind of catch that emotion from me too, right? So that's this idea of emotional contagion. I've read a couple of studies that look at flow contagion. So this is the idea. I remember there's one, I forget I forget who the author was, but they looked at actually teachers and in the classroom. And the idea, if I'm remembering the findings correctly, was that when a teacher who's teaching a class is in flow while teaching, their students are more likely to also be in flow. So there's this idea that basically flow can be contagious, and that if you witness people in flow or you're experiencing flow with somebody else, then like you're also more likely to feel that. So that I think ties into this idea of group flow and team flow. But I think that's an exciting area that's like really understudied that could be really powerful to look into as well.

I absolutely, I find that so fascinating. And I think maybe you're promoting people to come to see your live performances here.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Come to New York. Hopefully I'll be performing again soon. Absolutely.

So who else would be those kind of exemplars of flow, right? So if we wanted to surround ourselves with, you know, with flow to maybe catch it, so to speak here, I often think about going to kind of art galleries or museums, live shows, sporting events. Yeah. Where else would you want to kind of put yourself into to catch that flow? And yeah, other ways or any ideas about how to kind of bring that into the workplace in some ways, you know, how to promote that.

Yeah, I mean, I think finding mentors, right, of people who you see are doing good, you know, great work, and maybe you, you can see are passionate about their work and really put their whole selves into it. I think that it's likely that those people are, are in flow more, right? That they're putting their whole selves into the moment, into their work. And being part of that, right? Trying to have mentors that do that. I think it could be really powerful. And it's just interesting because this idea of like mentorship and finding people, there's a lot of positive things to be associated with people like that that has nothing to do with flow, But it's just because probably that hasn't been explored as much and actually has a lot to do with flow, right? That surrounding yourself with positive people who have skills that you want to learn, right? They probably help to sort of provide scaffolding. If we think about the zone of proximal development and some of that developmental psychology stuff. Mentors help you to build your skills and to get yourself in a place where that challenge-skill balance is again a little bit more in balance for yourself. So I think that's probably a big one, just finding mentors, right? And yeah, I kind of similarly, I think, and similar idea to flow contagion is like spillover, right? So if you find flow in extreme sports or skiing or, um, you know, in going to performances, like, does that lead to more flow at work as well? And maybe just the experience of, uh, feeling flow more often helps you to get into it more on demand and in other areas too. Um, so just try to get into it as much as you can and as many different areas as you can while also maintaining that balance that we've kind of been talking about this whole time with being more mindful and making sure to give yourself time to recharge as well.

I, I love the, you know, you describe those high-flow individuals as individual people who put the whole self into what they do. And I don't know what exactly it is about that, but when I heard you say that, it really kind of led lights me up. It really lands as truth. I think, you know, flow's correlation to full self-expression is a really, you know, beautiful way to describe some of its benefits. So yeah, I just, I really appreciate you mentioning that. Maybe, you know, tell us a little bit more about why flow in the workplace. And, you know, it's kind of a, maybe one of our final questions here. What would your encouragement be CEOs, to those running startups, managers, individuals who are wanting to consult or support others in workplace? Why flow is something for them to consider?

So I think flow is simple— like, flow itself is actually pretty complex, right? Explaining it, understanding what it is as like a phenomena is, is pretty complex. But it's also simple in that when you talk about it to people, they can identify times when they feel it. It's like a feeling that might be hard to describe. But once you do to somebody, they're like, oh, I know exactly what that is. I know when I felt it. And it feels great. So I think as far as the workplace is concerned, there's just a lot of evidence at this point for positive outcomes associated with the workplace that are really important for work in general. So, you know, go back to my study and others that show, you know, the reduction in stress and burnout, which is super important in these days, right? The improvement of engagement is really important and just performance and creativity, all, all these great things. But what I also like about flow is this, the sort of simpleness of the prerequisites, like in theory. So the clear goal, The challenge, skill balance, and feedback are what we consider the 3 big prerequisites of flow. And as an organizational psychologist, like a lot of other theories actually build on these ideas without tying them to flow just because they haven't been explored before. And because of that, I think flow actually, it's like hitting multiple multiple birds with one stone, right? So in my, in my consulting, in my, in my coaching, I try to focus on those 3 prerequisites. And often, if you're not experiencing flow, if you have these sort of— if you're not experiencing even like looking beyond flow, just those outcomes that we're talking about, like if you have a lot of burnout, if you have a lot of turnover, if you, you know, don't see people performing at their, at their best, if you look at clear goals that challenge, skill balance, and feedback, there's often something going on in one of those 3 pillars that you can then hone in on and do interventions for. And so this works, you know, again, at the individual level. So coaching, you know, we can say, okay, like, do you know what you want to accomplish? Do you have those clear goals, short-term, medium-term, and long-term? Are those goals too difficult? Are they too easy, right? That challenge, skill balance, and helping people to kind of like dial those And then like, do you know how you're actually doing on your path to achieving those goals? So that's where that feedback is, right? Building in feedback loops, asking for feedback from your boss or whatever. And so that's the individual level. And then at the team level, we can, you know, implement those same ideas. So what are the team's goals? Do we know what they are? Do people know how their individual goals feed into the team goals? Are you making sure that people As a manager, are you making sure that people are not feeling overwhelmed by the amount of tasks or the type of tasks that you're giving them? Are you giving them feedback on how well they're doing towards those goals? Often people have so much ambiguity or they feel overwhelmed because they have too much work or the tasks that they're given don't line up with their skills. And this can drive turnover or this can drive burnout. And then the same idea can be implemented at the organizational level, right? Do the different teams, the different departments know what their goals are? They understand how their goals feed into the organization. Are those goals realistic? Are those goals actually important? And like, do those different departments know whether or not they're on their way to achieving them? And so it's really scalable. And simple, yet you have to dig into each of those pillars in detail and in a very like individualistic way or personalized way to be, you know, effective in coaching or building those systems.

Incredible, Jared. Well said. You know, the, the practicality, I think what you're really pointing at, and the scalability from the individual to the team to the group or to the whole organization I hope all those coaches and managers and CEOs are really listening in because that's, that's gold there. The, the three kind of principles of flow and how you can scale those up. Yeah, just well, well said, Jared. So anything else, uh, that we haven't maybe spoken about that you just love to share with the Flow Research Collective community here? Anything else that is of interest to you or just, yeah, fascinating story or, yeah, anything that you thought would be nice to share?

I mean, really, I think we've hit on my whole life story and all the research that I've been working on. So, you know, I continue to find new and interesting questions that are worth asking and exploring. I, I'm really grateful to see the progress that our clients really make throughout their time with us and It just validates the, you know, the work that, that we're doing to see, to see that progress. And I'm grateful to be part of that. Um, and yeah, I would just say that these are learnable, or just like, these are skills that you can learn over time if you put the work in and, and sort of, um, commit to being more intentional about about, you know, about this stuff. And it can really be, you know, maybe you're, you're in flow too much, right? And we help to help to like dial that back a little bit and recharge a little bit more and to recognize the, the benefits of taking that time to recharge and investing in yourself to get the most out of, you know, your potential. And it really can be the opposite end of the spectrum or, you know, you just need to initiate some more goals and have those goals stack onto each other towards your longer-term goals. And that leads to all these great outcomes that you look back on and say, wow, I can't believe I've accomplished these things. I feel so much better physically and mentally. So yeah, I guess I would just say like, I'm grateful to the Community for allowing me to be a part of it. To, to feel free to reach out to me and talk more about any of these ideas or concepts. I'm obviously very passionate about all these different topics that we've talked about today and would love to have those conversations.

You clearly put your whole self into it, uh, Dr. Uh, and you, uh, certainly, um, yeah, we're lucky to have you as part of this community. So the last question came here. This research question, our genie question, we like to ask. So if you could have the answer to any study, what would you want to know? What would that study be?

Any study?

I—

it's a great question. I mean, I think maybe the question of like, how long does it take to develop some of these skills? Like, what is the threshold I think would be a great one because, like, especially with mindfulness, like, I think it's a learned skill that an on-the-spot intervention can be helpful with for, like, reducing stress and helping you to concentrate a little bit more. But what I've been finding is it actually is a long-term thing that you have to practice over time for it to be be the most effective. So like, what is that threshold for like a mindfulness practice, let's say? How long does it take to, to practice, and with what type of, um, and with what type of practice is the most effective to, to, you know, have the most benefit?

Right on. So finally, Jared, uh, best ways for people to contact you, uh, stay connected, see when your shows— what— how can people reach out?

Yeah, probably the easiest and best way is on LinkedIn. Just search my name, Jared Weintraub, or feel free to email me, jweintraub89@gmail.com. And yeah, I'd love to hear from you, so please feel free to reach out.

All right, Jared, this was a lot of fun. I learned a lot today, and as always, we're lucky to have you as part of the community, and looking forward to continuing to do great work together. So thank you, Jared, and we appreciate this. Thank you, it was fun.

Thank you so much for having me, I really appreciate it.

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