Continuing my tour of TED.com, the amazing resource for those who want to study ideas and the public expression of them, I’m taking on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html)

Mihaly is the expert on ‘Flow’, that state of happy absorption into any creative process that he has documented as part of a life-long research project on happiness.

What's Mihaly's insight?  It turns out, alas, that money doesn’t buy you happiness.  In fact, beyond a certain minimal level, happiness does not increase with increased material wealth. 

Happiness does come with flow, at least for creative people involved in doing things they like to do.  The composer creating music, the poet writing a lyric poem – or the CEO running a business.  Each of these can experience flow on the job. 

I’m a big fan of Mihaly’s work, and highly recommend his books, including Flow:  The Psychology of Optimal Experience, which describes the state in question in greater detail.

Unfortunately, I can’t be a fan of Mihaly’s presentation style.  He begins with a moderately interesting story, only somewhat relevant, of hearing Carl Jung speak about how Europeans coped with the tragedy of WWII.  But it’s not until 2:41 minutes into the talk that he uncrosses his arms and looks up for the first time.  After that, he’s still got his head down, looking at the floor, pacing randomly, connecting with the audience only occasionally.  My guess is that he’s modeling his behavior on professors he’s watched over the years, and that’s a mistake.

He seems to be carrying an enormous psychological weight around, a little odd for someone who studies happiness.  A little more bounce in the step would seem more consistent with his message.  But maybe he studies happiness because it eludes him personally. 

As the talk goes on, he does open up his gestures, but he then turns to the screen and talks to the slides, constantly backing up away from the audience until the end of his talk, where he disappears into the darkness at the corner of the stage, asking ‘OK?’ of no one in particular.  Clearly, public speaking is not where Mihaly experiences his flow.  Buy his book; skip the lecture.