Chronos Vs. Kairos
Bill Gates (the super-villain behind 5g, COVID, the Illuminati and Clippy) once said:
“Most people overestimate what they can achieve in a year and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years.”
Apparently this statement was first uttered by Stanford computer scientist Roy Amara. It’s also been attributed to Tony Drucker, Arthur C. Clarke, Peter Drucker and (ja, most likely) Rassie Erasmus.
Whoever the heck said it, it’s now officially known as ‘Gates’s Law’ and it reveals a valuable lesson about how we should think about time.
The ancient Greeks had two words for time: Chronos and Kairos.
The first, Chronos, refers to quantitative time. These are equally measured units. Seconds, minutes, hours.
The second word Kairos, predating Einstein, refers to a more fluid, relative perspective of time.
Chronos is pretty much how we spend most of our days. Doom-scrolling through social media. Cleaning a house. Driving in traffic. Sifting through emails. Mindless, meaningless sorting through the muck.
Kairos is a little more rare. Philosophers sometimes call it ‘deep time’. It’s when the world slows down and we’re dodging bullets like Neo in The Matrix.
After entering a state of Kairos, we look back and thirty minutes feels like five.
When we enter a flow state, we access Kairos.
Flow state, otherwise known as ‘in the zone’ was famously studied by the psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in 1970.
God only knows how you pronounce that dude’s name, but the amazing Apple+ documentary The Greatness Code tries to capture the essence of what Csíkszentmihályi described.
In the series, the filmmakers interview a group of GOAT athletes, including Lebron James, Alex Morgan, Usain Bolt and Katie Ledecky.
My favourite scene is when LeBron James talks about a seminal game that he played where he was as close to flawless as anyone could imagine.
When asked about what he was feeling during the game, James replies, “I felt absolutely nothing.”
James pauses, then smiles. “I wish I could bottle ‘Nothing’.”
You can see this in most of the great competitors, whether it’s Fourie du Preez, Wayde van Niekerk, Thembi Kgatlana or Handré Pollard. Everything seems to slow down for them. They can bend time to their will.
We may recall times when we entered this state. Writing that kick-ass essay at junior school. Playing ‘that’ competitive match at high school. Prepping for finals at university or college. The time we aced that investment pitch.
After hours of intense focus, we raise our heads and suddenly realise we’ve added a little bit of magic to the universe.
How do we enter Csíkszentmihályi’s mysterious ‘flow state’?
The Heavy Chef learning platform features the legendary leadership coach and consultant Simone Berger. In her wonderful recipe How To Implement Flow, Simone mentions that the key to harnessing a flow state is to develop a solid practice and create a strong vision. In doing so, we should remain present as much as possible. We should be aware of these flow state occasions as they arise. These are the moments that matter.
Jim Collins (yes, regular readers know that I’m a big fanboy) terms this ‘return on luck’. The successful companies that Collins cites in his book Great By Choice are those that prepare (Chronos) for the magical moments. When they inevitably appear, they’re ready to pounce (Kairos).
The key, according to Collins, is finding our focus. In Great By Choice, Collins explains how Bill Gates made Microsoft a success by applying razor-sharp focus over several years before landing Microsoft’s landmark deal with IBM in the eighties.
If we know what we’re preparing for, we’re infinitely more ready to take advantage of being the ‘right guy/gal at the right time’.
This can be really, really, really hard, but… it is essential.
What can we focus on in 2024 and ensure we bend time to our will?
What can we say ‘no’ to in the next 12 months?
How can we be like Bill and deploy Kairos to our advantage?
The important thing is to access Kairos when the opportunity presents itself.
Let’s go out and bottle ‘Nothing’.
Peace -
