Flow as a metric 📶

I sometimes use “flow” as a metric for how well something’s working.

When hiring, for example, I’m always looking for alignment, and if there’s too much back and forth, that’s a sign that something’s off. We may not be a fit—at least not at this time; or I may need to do some soul-searching and see where I’m out of alignment.

If I want to say something in a conversation but there’s some tug in my belly or my mind goes blank, I wonder if maybe I’m better off not saying it at all (again, at least not now, but with now being all there is, if I need to say it later, I’ll think it then, so I can let go). Many people who go on lots of dates learn to trust their first impressions in the same way—”on paper” never works out, but flow tends to last (though watch out for anxious attachment patterns that conflate intensity with love, and secure attachment with boringness). 

The quickest way this goes awry is to forget that flow is categorically relational, and to think it means there’s some jam up “over there”. There’s no blame, judgment, or even assignment of cause for lack of alignment.

The next quickest way is to forget that “a” metric is different from “the” metric. Flow gives us access to lots of information we normally block out, but not everything.

With love, Jordan