Mihály Csikszentmihályi: 1934 -2021
Professor Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi died recently at the end of October whilst at his home in Claremont, California. He was 87.
Dr. Csikszentmihalyi was one of the world’s best-known psychologists, famous for developing the concept of ‘flow’. Csikszentmihalyi spent decades researching the ‘flow’ states of consciousness that people can achieve when they’re totally absorbed in doing what they’re best at.
Csikszentmihályi authored over 20 books and spent much of his career at the University of Chicago before moving to California where he joined Claremont Graduate University.
Csikszentmihályi was one of the inspirations of the FLŌA brand, an Old Norse word for 'flow' or river', and taught us that when you find flow you know.
Skiing and snowboarding are two sports that have that balance of required skill and sufficient challenge where the participant can feel totally immersed, lose a sense of time and be totally in the present. It is these minutes of zen that keep driving us to return to the mountains again and again.
No matter what your sport and where you find your flow. We can all be grateful to Csikszentmihályi for his work. He has allowed us to understand how we can all improve and why.
Fergie Miller
Author
Fergie, the founder of FLŌA, founded and spent ten years at Base Camp training over 2,000 ski & snowboard instructors before spending 8 years working in tech startups, including at over 5 accelerators covering Seed to Series A, before returning to action sports base layers and creating the FLŌA brand.