Csikszentmihalyi « 800 CEO Read

June 25, 2004

Csikszentmihalyi

Filed under: Personal Development — Todd Sattersten @ 12:12 pm

On my long list of books to read is “something” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. In Re-imagine, Tom Peters recommends Becoming Adult. In May, The Monday Morning Book Club at the Miami Herald reviewed his book Good Leadership. You might also recognize the title Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

Johnnie Moore is reading Good Leadership now and really likes it.

I am going to have to move Mihaly up on my list.

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http://metacool.typepad.com/metacool/ Diego from metacool

In my mind, Csikszentmihalyi is required reading for anyone who wants to:
1) Get a better understanding of what happiness is
2) Get a better understanding of how to get to that state of happiness
3) How to help other people (i.e., the people you work with) to that state, too.
I’d recommend starting out with “Flow”. For those of you who are of a creative bent (and who isn’t?), Csikszentmihalyi’s book “Creativity” will blow your mind — I read it and told my wife, “For the first time I truly understand what makes me tick.”
“Good Business” is a nice book in that it takes the ideas from “Flow” and applies them to the domain of business and management. But start with “Flow” first — I think it’s the best balance of challenge vs. skill for a first-time Csikszentmihalyi reader.
– Diego, your friendly 800CEOREAD Blog book reviewer
http://www.800ceoread.com Jack Covert

I completely agree with Diego. Flow is one of my Desert Island books, that go along with my Desert Island discs. It is one of those “OMG, I completely agree with everything this guy says.” It is a classic and continues to sell after over 10 years.