Obliquity, by John Kay

Achieving success is what we all want. But are we going about it in the right way?

And what is the "right way", anyway?

In his book, Obliquity, John Kay explains that often, one can achieve one's goals by being INDIRECT.

The author argues that often the most profitable firms are not profit-driven; the happiest people do not (directly) seek "happiness" but engage in "flowful" activities (which totally absorb their mind).

Note: He refers to "flow," a body of work pioneered by Mihalyi and summarized succinctly in his book, Flow - the psychology of optimal experience. (It's the best book I ever read about DESIGNING fulfilling activities that lead to happiness in life. I've used the book to design experiences that totally engage my mind. This total loss of oneself in a flowful activity, enables a person to turn her passion into a talent. After 5-10 years, they become the best in their field.

That is, they have a talent that can now be turned into a career or a business.

Often, people have a passion but do not know how to design the environment (physical, psychological, social, material) that will drive them to "flowfully" develop this passion further and further. Thus, the passion fails to become a talent, and the talent fails to become a fulfilling career or small business.

The process I created to capture this all-important imperative of "following one's bliss", as famed mythologist Joseph Campbell put it, has four phases:

- Fear
- Freedom
- Flow
- Fortune

From the above, I tend to agree with Kay's premise, that our goals in life (or visions, dreams, objectives, no matter what we call the objects of desire that we aim for) can be best achieved INDIRECTLY.

So first, a person must acknowledge she is afraid. She feels, consciously or not, the fear of deviating from societal norms and even norms set by parents, consciously or not.

Then, she can be free to explore; free to be herself TRULY and AUTHENTICALLY.

Next, she learns how to design environments where she can experience "flow", almost by default.

For example, at home I have notebooks and pens everywhere, including calligraphy pens, so this deliberately designed environment enables me to practice the writer's craft (and my calligraphy) often. Every day, in fact.

Finally, and this is the easy part, she creates a FORTUNE for herself, having diligently gone through the previous phases.