Susan Cain

#1 bestselling books, QUIET & BITTERSWEET. Read the Quiet Life newsletter for art, ideas, consolations & candlelight:

[Susan Cain @susancain]

One week to go until #Bittersweet, an @OprahsBookClub selection, is available in paperback!

Don’t forget to preorder and complete this form (https://t.co/E7DAakrrXG) before 6/19 to get your signed bookplate!

[Ramin Nasibov @RaminNasibov]

Logo for Paris Tennis School

[Ihtesham Ali @ihtesham2005]

A Hungarian-American psychologist spent 40 years proving that the noise in your head when you try to focus is not a failure of willpower, it is a design feature of your brain, and almost no manager on earth has implemented what he found.

His name was Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

It started when he was 10 years old, locked in an Italian prison camp during World War II. His relatives were being killed. One brother died in combat. Another was shipped to a labor camp in Siberia. The whole world he grew up in was gone.

Then he found chess.

The moment he sat down at the board, the war disappeared. For hours he forgot the camp, the fear, the hunger, all of it. He was not escaping reality. He was more inside it than ever, just pointed at one thing.

He spent the rest of his life trying to explain why.

What he found is that your brain has a hard ceiling. It can only process about 110 bits of information per second. That sounds like a lot until you learn that just following someone talking eats 60 bits. That is why you cannot listen to two people at once. Your bandwidth is full.

This noise in your head is not weakness. It’s remaining bandwidth with nothing to grab.

When a task is hard enough to require almost everything you've got, there's no room for anything else. No room to be hungry. No room to see time. No time to repeat this morning’s argument or to worry about money. The chatter stops, not because you made it stop, but because there is no power left to run it.

He called this state “Flow.” And he showed it wasn’t a fluke. It is driven by formula.

The task has to be at the edge of your ability. Too easy and you will get bored and drift off. Too hard and you get anxious and freeze up. The sweet spot is a narrow band just beyond what you can comfortably do. And that band is where your best work and your best moments actually live.

And you need a clear goal and instant feedback. A chess player always knows where the board is. A climber knows exactly where the next handhold is. Most office work feels like walking through mud. The goal is vague and the feedback is weeks away in a meeting, if you get feedback at all.

He did something no one had tried to prove all of this. He gave people electronic beepers in the 1970s and buzzed them at random times during the day. When the beeper sounded, they wrote down what they were doing and how they felt at the time. Real life, caught in the moment, thousands of times.

The data revealed something that should have changed every company on the planet.

People experience flow much more often at work than in their leisure time. TV, couch, weekend scrolling, not much flow at all. They became energised at work, with tasks that had goals and feedback.

But there was a catch that dashed his own hopes. Those same people in flow at work said they wished they were somewhere else. It was the best mental experience a human can have and they hated it every minute.

And the reason was obvious. When you pick the challenge, the flow feels incredible. When it is forced on you by someone , it feels like a trap . Same mental state. Conflicting meaning.

This is the part that has been lost for 40 years.

The science was right there. People are most happy when they are asked to do something hard, when the ask is just beyond their skill, and when they decide to rise to the occasion. Give people a clear goal, fast feedback, real control and a challenge matched to their ability and you don’t get drained employees. You get people doing their best work and feeling most alive.

Instead we built open offices with interruptions. We buried goals in vague slogans. We put feedback in the annual review. We robbed people of their agency and then wondered why no one could pay attention.

Before the age of 12, a scared boy in a prison camp found the cure for a distracted mind.

The rest of us are still building lives and workplaces that make it impossible.

[Susan Cain @susancain]

@karmakar Thank you, Arnab!

[Susan Cain @susancain]

Was true then, still true today

[Susan Cain @susancain]

Today is publication day for Lucky and Norman! The reviews are in, and they’re wonderful. I’m very excited to share this new children’s book with you - written by three generations of the Cain family.

https://t.co/IAvDCl6by8

[Mark Manson @Markmanson]

Purpose has seasons. What drove you through your 20s will exhaust you in your 40s. Growth means letting your previous selves die without calling it failure.

[Gitana @Gitana1369877]

"But I quite like the rain. It makes everything feel a bit more private, a bit less public."
— Haruki Murakami, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

[Gitana @Gitana1369877]

"Taking the time to appreciate the small things—a quiet street, a familiar face, a moment of unexpected connection—is where life truly happens."
— Haruki Murakami

[Susan Cain @susancain]

@ElliottBlackwe3 I'm so sorry, Elliott. Your father was so lucky to have you as a son.

[Dylan O'Sullivan @DylanoA4]

C. S. Lewis said it best

you need to read old books

[Elle Lookbook @EvaLovesDesign]

cobalt blue has this intense, almost electric depth that feels both regal and emotional

[Dylan O'Sullivan @DylanoA4]

C. S. Lewis with maybe the most important paragraph ever written for people with creative ambitions

[Atlas Press @realAtlasPress]

Carl Jung, this line may contain the most wisdom in the fewest words ever

[Elle Lookbook @EvaLovesDesign]

Ceiling skies

[Susan Cain @susancain]

Seven ways to say goodbye to the people you love most — and to heal from the pain of separation:

https://t.co/CNNmWO4II6

[Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom]

I'm convinced that the single greatest challenge for any ambitious person is eliminating the guilt associated with free time and rest.

[Wholesome Side of 𝕏 @itsme_urstruly]

You know, I’ve come to believe the best coping mechanism is a solid hobby. Your interests have this beautiful way of always nursing you back to joy. Whether it’s reading, writing, playing a sport, or whatever lights you up.
Find that thing, pour real time into it, and let it be the thing you can always count on to guide you back home.

[Liza Libes @pensandpoison]

The Latin word hūmānitās (which gave us "the humanities") reflected faith in the potential of the human mind and was invariably tied to civilizational flourishing.
But somewhere along the way, we managed to replace truth and beauty with nihilism and deconstruction.

[Liza Libes @pensandpoison]

Most students leave college knowing how to critique books but not how to love them.

[Into The Forest Dark @ElliottBlackwe3]

"The Stream" by Rachel Clearfield