“It would be difficult to see how a species as dependent on learning as we are could have survived if we didn’t find the process of making sense of our environment pleasurably rewarding.” ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Kim Hermanson ~ From the article “Intrinsic motivation in museums: Why does one want to learn? by [ Read more … ]
mihaly csikszentmihalyi
Why it’s OK to switch directions.
A creative life is not linear. It has twists and turns. But that doesn’t mean those pieces and experiences don’t come back around. In my twenties, I worked as a computer scientist for two Fortune 500 companies. At the age of 27, I broke my back in a head-on collision on the highway and was [ Read more … ]
Excerpt from an article I wrote with my mentor, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“One often meets successful adults, professionals, or scientists who recall that their lifelong vocational interest was first sparked by a visit to a museum. In these accounts, the encounter–with a real, concrete object from a different world an exotic animal, a strange dress, a beautiful artifact–is the kernel from which an entire career of learning [ Read more … ]
Losing my mentor, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
My mentor, advisor, and the father figure in my life, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, passed away this week on Wednesday, October 20th. I met Mihaly (Mike) soon after my father died unexpectedly at the age of 57. I asked him to be my academic advisor and he took me under his wing. He was only a year [ Read more … ]
Procrastinating…. Or Just Tuned Into Something Else?
Organizational research has demonstrated that people who procrastinate are more creative than people who don’t procrastinate. Actually, the results show a bell curve, meaning that a degree of procrastination is helpful in facilitating creative ideas. This is really not so surprising. If you’re someone who anxiously leaps into action to get every task done without [ Read more … ]
