Instead of trying to get into the flow state, we stop taking ourselves out of it.

Jon Thorne, our founder, is notable for being among the first to understand that the flow state is an integral part of the human experience. We all exist in a state of flow; instead of trying to enter it, we have to stop taking ourselves out of it.

This insight led Jon to Dr. Iain McGilchrist, who elaborates that when the brain engages in the need to focus on a specific thing, it diminishes its awareness of the interconnected relationships between all the things surrounding us. After the specific thing is acquired, the brain should shift its focus away from that detail and revert to a more fluid, flow state, allowing it to recognize when another thing is needed. Flow is our inherent state until we step away from it to grasp something.

Iain highlights that when we dedicate considerable time to doing, collecting, perfecting, ordering, and mapping things, we encounter prolonged interruptions to our natural flow. Such behavior is not natural and is detrimental to our well-being.

Unfortunately, technology demands that we spend significant time focussed on following a map, a list, a pathway of things. Many of us are experiencing extended disruptions to our flow. To address this issue, Jon devised a way to avoid rigid structures such as maps, task lists, or predetermined pathways to train the flow state.

We do activities that nurture relationships of flow.jpg

Flow state training

The prevailing belief is that entering the flow state requires elite-level mastery of skills. Flow state trainers bypass this limitation by preventing people from fixating solely on achieving that mastery. To pay attention to the relationships of connection between everything around us and take an action. To pause to see how that affected the relationships of connection, and then take another action, and so on. Everything becomes timeless, natural, and effortless as we fit fragments of the parts of our current skills seamlessly together in different and unfolding ways, without the sensation of active thought. Performance is simply the result of allowing flow to happen so that something we could not have known before appears—a Wow moment.

We analyze what happened not for repetition, but to foster confidence that we can use flow to achieve better overall performance from the skills we already have.

Let’s
Flow

St Albans, Hertfordshire, UK

We come out of flow when we follow a map, a task list, or a specific pathway. To train flow, we need to do activities that prevent us from following a map. Some activities our flow state trainers like to use include basketball, swimming, and enjoying conversations to spark ideas.

The governance team

We make sure those coaching the flow state follow their peer review process

LOUISE HOSKING

30+ years experience working with business leaders in organisations of all sizes and a range of sectors to achieve positive culture change using my professional skills as a positive driver to add value enabling organisations to achieve their operational aspirations and beyond.

An unconventional entrepreneur, influencer and transformational leader adept at working across all levels. I’m motivated by the potential our profession has to unlock the abilities of people to support one another to, in turn, create a healthy world to live, work, do business and create communities which thrive. By releasing people to be the best they can be we will create psychological safety with teams and supplychains who trust one another. From here, we achieve true sustainability via local, national and global networks. Together we will step up to meet the very many, and very real, challenges we are currently facing around the world today.

I thrive in a business environment. I know what it means to juggle distractions, complexities, conflicting priorities; and manage/plan resources. I’m adept at creating high performing teams to achieve transformative objectives which evolve into smarter working solutions that empower people to be the best they can be. In turn, culture is transformed to create a vibrant organisation with the energy to achieve its goals and go further.

Currently Executive Director of Environmental Health at the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health creating visibility via our members for a profession which spans health protection in and out of work. I’m also Director of the OneWISH coalition a social enterprise supporting Women & Inclusion

In Nov 2021 I was elected as the 55th #IOSH President & Chair of IOSH council. I used my skills to transform the elected council, working closely with the board and executive teams to create new foundations in a post pandemic world and culture change. My theme was #People #Sustainability and putting ❤️ into #Health & #Safety.I’m proud of the professional approach now established across council. This means the member voice is being heard more clearly than ever before with much closer board working relationships. What we do is more than process it’s about people and compassion. As only the 7th woman to hold the role I also hope I have inspired others.

I am persistently consistent and consistently persistent practiced in starting from the start and achieving positive transformation in an exciting and engaging manner, at the right cadence, to achieve lasting change starting with just one conversation at a time.

STUART MARSHALL

Stuart is an experienced outdoor instructor with over 30 years of commercial outdoor teaching experience. He is a national instructor for scuba diving and also a cave leader, bushcraft instructor, and river guide with a particular interest in exploring the remote rivers of Scandinavia. He spent many years working at the Leadership Trust when it was the UK's foremost management training centre.
He is also a company director of his own First Aid Training business with clients as diverse as the Forestry Commission, Imperial College, Birmingham University, and the Natural History Museum. He has used neurodivergent thinking to develop a unique one-day blended First Aid at Work course (plus two days of eLearning) that massively frees up staff time (compared to a traditional 3-day classroom-based course).

Stuart also chairs the Advisory panel for the First Aid Industry Body, the UK’s foremost governing body for independent First Aid training companies. He has also held national positions with the Sub-Aqua Association one of two British Scuba Diving Governing Bodies.

Stuart’s qualifications are diverse from an academic PhD in Microbiology to H&S and leadership qualifications plus video production, animation, etc

Stuart has been working with Jon Thorne for many years and being neurodivergent himself understands the aims of the awarding body and the benefits to those who take part.

IAIN BOWLER

Iain qualified as a lawyer in 1988 specialising in M&A, stock exchange and complex commercial and joint venture work. Between 1998 and 2002, Iain was Director of Corporate Finance at a corporate industrial developer headquartered in the UK and USA. He joined one of the world’s largest law firms in 2002 and was global Co-Chair of the Commercial Contracts and Franchise and Distribution Groups for 10 years before joining Freeths as National Head of Commercial in 2019.

Freeths is a UK top 50 law firm with offices in 12 cities in the UK. The firm employs over 1,000 lawyers and support personnel and in the last financial year had fee income in excess of £110 million.

Professional expertise

Iain’s work involves commercial transactions of all descriptions, including outsourcing, offshoring, manufacturing, consultancy, services and service level agreements, procurement of goods and services, supply chain management, logistics, international trade and capital asset procurement, and maintenance. Iain also advises clients in relation to the many different ways of delivering goods and services to market, both within the UK and internationally, including direct sale, agency, distribution, e-commerce, and business format franchising.

Iain also advises in relation to domestic and multi-jurisdictional structured joint ventures, partnerships and strategic alliances, providing advice on appropriate deal structures and delivery mechanisms relating to national and multi-jurisdictional transactions.

Iain is ranked as a “leading individual” for commercial and franchise work in The Legal 500 and Chambers, is listed in the global Who’s Who Legal for franchise work and is an Acritas™ Star Lawyer. Iain is an Affiliate Member of the British Franchise Association and contributing editor of Global Legal Group’s “International Comparative Legal Guide: Franchise”.

Other information

Iain lives in Hertfordshire, is married to Victoria (also a Partner in an international law firm) and has 4 children. He is a keen sportsman with interests in rugby, snowboarding and all forms of motorsport. He is an RFU accredited junior rugby coach and referee.